Remarks to the press by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy following the vote on the UNGA draft resolution
Dmitry Polyanskiy: Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for coming here. I just wanted to make several remarks regarding the recent vote in the UNGA.
You all had the opportunity to witness what has happened. There was a politicized resolution, presented by Ukraine under the guise of the problems of nuclear safety of this country. But in fact, it was a political draft.
You can evaluate the results of the voting as you want, but judging from the faces of those who were behind this vote, I wouldn't say that they're very much satisfied. Of course, they recall the previous votes in the General Assembly on the Ukrainian issue. Now, they have the opportunity to make sure that roughly half of the members of the General Assembly don't have to do anything with the politicized agenda on Ukraine. We see it as a request for peaceful efforts to establish genuine, lasting, and sustainable peace in Ukraine.
I also wanted to draw your attention to the fact (already mentioned in my statement) that the work on this resolution was conducted in the most non-transparent, almost scandalous manner. Also, the promoters of this text took a ruse which might not be noticed by a lot.
You know that they decided not to call for the renewal of the 11th Emergency Special Session on Ukraine. They decided to promote it as a standalone draft. This is not by chance – should they do it within the framework of the 11th session, they would have to obtain two thirds of the votes. Here it was enough to obtain simple majority. So, I think they were so unsure of their actions that they decided not to risk even this opportunity.
Of course, this another nonconsensual, politicized draft will make absolutely no effect on the ground, as the previous ones. It may only unfortunately embolden the party of war in Europe, in the United States and in Ukraine, of course. They will try to pretend that this is kind of support of the international community for their efforts to keep Zelenskiy’s regime afloat by mobilizing a lot of Ukrainians who are absolutely not willing to fight. You see it from the forced conscription in the streets. That's happening right now. They are being thrown into this bloodbath which is absolutely unnecessary.
I hope that someday the majority of the members of the General Assembly will force those who are warmongering to engage in genuine efforts to seek peace to the Ukrainian crisis, to seek resolution to the Ukrainian crisis, and, of course, to correct the root causes of all this crisis situation.
That's what I wanted to say.
Q: Why do you think there was a larger number of abstentions on this resolution? Did Russia do any lobbying? And with regard to the content of the resolution, which demands that Russia withdraw from the power plant and give it back to Ukraine, why doesn’t Russia do that? Why wouldn’t you withdraw?
A: According to our Constitution, these lands are already part of the Russian Federation, and we can’t change this. President Putin made a proposal. This proposal is quite realistic, and if I were a Ukrainian, I would grasp on this proposal, because this is may be one of the last proposals on this issue. You know that the situation at the front is not in favor of Ukraine. This is not very much publicized. But, if you read even Ukrainian publics, you will see how desperate Ukrainians are now at the front, and this is being absolutely ignored by its Western sponsors, who are ready to sacrifice Ukraine and fight until the last Ukrainian. So, the party of war is very active so far.
And your first question was about so many abstentions. Frankly, I was not aware of this resolution until maybe Friday. So, it was done in such an untransparent manner. Of course, we were not aware of this. They didn't consult with us. This is the way they think diplomacy works. But the others were also complaining that there was a certain draft which was being discussed in very closed circles, and that they were not accepting any amendments. A lot of countries actually were trying to make this draft better. They were trying to exclude politicized paragraphs. The obvious thing which should be added to it, of course, is the condemnation of Ukrainian strikes on the Zaporozhye NPP. There are so many proofs to these strikes. I showed one. It is a UAV which we brought from there. There are dozens of these cases. All of them are being documented, and this big truth is absolutely out of the draft. It shows how detached it is from reality. And of course, many countries can't ignore this fact, hence such a big number of abstentions and those who didn't want to participate in the vote.
Q: One of the points of the resolution is that both sides should abide by humanitarian law. There is numerous evidence when Ukraine violated international humanitarian law, doesn’t it mean that Ukraine itself can’t follow this resolution, which it presented?
A: Well, Ukraine itself can't implement this resolution, also in the way that the Ukrainian ambassador was preaching from the rostrum that there shouldn't be any attacks on the plant, which are being carried out by Ukraine. I don't think that anybody who is sane, is thinking that Russia is targeting its own nuclear power plant. Given the fact that there are four other power plants in other regions of Ukraine, which are not under our control, it would be very much logical for us to target those ones if we wanted to inflict damage on nuclear safety in Ukraine. As for international humanitarian law, this is really a weak point of our Ukrainian colleagues. I think that those who were following the Security Council meeting recently saw a very blatant example of this violation of international humanitarian law by Ukraine when the air defense missiles were being placed in residential areas. This is total disrespect of international humanitarian law, and this caused the tragedy when the Ukrainian air defense missile hit the children's hospital.
Q: You mentioned the last proposals for peace, last proposals before what, is there an ultimate new phase in the war? What do you mean by that?
A: I mean that if you look at history, you'll see there were the Minsk agreements which are now being praised in Ukraine. A lot of people are trying, as we say it in Russia, to bite their elbow, because they can't return to this situation which was quite favorable for Ukraine. You remember that all they had to do, they had to implement these agreements through dialog with people in the East of Ukraine, which eventually would return to them control on the border. They didn't want to do it, and Western countries were arming Ukraine under the guise of Minsk agreements. Then there was Istanbul-1, which is also being now considered quite favorable for Ukraine. And you remember that as a gesture of goodwill, Russia withdrew its forces from the North of Ukraine. We were absolutely on the outskirts of Kiev, and Ukrainians were desperate. We decided that there was no sense in this, given the fact that Ukrainians were ready to accept the very favorable conditions for them, conditions that would make them normal, neighboring, peace loving country. Now, of course, the conditions are harsher, because the regions: the Kherson, the Zaporozhye, the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk are part of the Russian Federation according to the Constitution. And there is no way that we will give it them back, of course, and it's not because we are stubborn, but because of the will of people who are living in these areas. So, who knows what will be the third attempt? What will remain of Ukraine at this moment is very hard to predict. So, I wouldn't take such chances if I were in Ukrainian shoes.
Thank you very much.
