Statement by Chargé d'Affaires of the Russian Federation Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC briefing on Western arms deliveries to Ukraine
Mr.President,
Colleagues,
We thank Dr. Adedeji Ebo and Ms.Ann Wright for their meaningful briefings that reflect the actual situation with deliveries of Western weapons to the Kiev regime. To briefly characterize the situation in Ukraine, everything is unfolding exactly as we have been predicting for many months now. Support for the anti-national Ukrainian government, which has thrown its people on the altar of Western geopolitical interests, is rapidly declining. It drops to such miniscule values that even Ukrainian media are embarrassed to write about.
The main reason is that Zelensky, head of the Kiev junta, has deceived the Ukrainians several times and continues to do so. First time was when he went to the polls in 2019 and defeated his rival thanks to promises to stop the war in Donbas, which his predecessors had unleashed in 2014, as well as to protect the rights of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine, their cultural and historical identity. But when elected, he forgot all this, the war has intensified, and the Russian language and its speakers, who are the majority in Ukraine, are being persecuted and harassed in violation of the Constitution of Ukraine, of which the president is to guarantee.
Second time he deceived Ukrainians was when he claimed that Ukraine was implementing the Minsk Agreements. Today, it is obvious to the overwhelming majority of residents of Ukraine that fulfilment of the Minsk deal would have been the best solution for Ukraine, allowing it to preserve inter-ethnic peace and territorial integrity, provided that it adopted a normal behavior for a democratic society. Instead, however, the Ukrainian president and his associates (as we know today from the revelations of former Western politicians) with the help of the United States and its allies, were actively arming and preparing for a war with Russia and a NATO membership, which would have created absolutely unacceptable risks and security threats for our country, of which Washington, Brussels and Kiev were well aware.
Finally, the third time the Kiev regime deceived the Ukrainians was when it rejected the favorable terms of peace with Russia in April 2022 and chose the path of military escalation as prompted by former British Prime Minister B.Johnson and Pentagon chief L.Austin, which we also know for sure today. Promises to defeat Russia that were both empty and absolutely futile in military terms were well supported by years of brainwashing by Russophobic and neo-Nazi Maidan-style propaganda to infatuate many immature Ukrainians. The result is obvious to everyone: hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed citizens, economic devastation, total corruption and a brutal dictatorship. To preserve the latter, Zelensky even went so far as to cancel presidential elections as his chances of re-election were too slim.
Add to this Zelensky's lies about numerous attacks against civil facilities by Ukrainian air defense systems deployed in residential areas, which were then passed off as Russian strikes. Another worthy mention is his lies about provocations like Bucha or Kramatorsk, where "tracks" of the Kiev regime and its Western sponsors are visible from far away. All this triggered widespread disappointment among Ukrainians, who have come to realize that Zelensky is steering the country into an abyss.
The Ukrainian regime, like a dying drug addict, survives only thanks to Western financial handouts, much of which are immediately plundered, and Western arms supplies, which have no significant impact on the battlefield. After all, Internet is swarming with images of burning Western equipment. These supplies are only delaying the imminent collapse of the current criminal, anti-people, corruption-ridden Kiev authorities.
It is not exactly about having or not having weapons and ammunition. Back in June 2022, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba, whom we have often received in this chamber, promised that if there were no Western weapons, Ukrainians would fight with shovels. It is about the deceived Ukrainians not wanting to fight. The people know about absolutely senseless “meat assaults”, about the fact that new recruits and even disabled people are sent to the front line without any training and without their consent. As we learned recently, even underage orphans are conscripted. The whole country remembers Zelensky's false promises that Ukrainians "will not be made to fight under compulsion" and sees what really happens. And that is, man-hunt on Ukrainians with chases and beatings; raids on gyms and clubs; draft officers searching public transit or simply storming into apartment buildings looking for more "cannon fodder".
According to confessions of members of Ukrainian military, which were recently published by Western media, the average life expectancy of such conscripts on the front line is 48 hours. At the same time, draft officers readily take bribes from anyone who is able to give, and the children of Ukrainian officials and MPs spend their time abroad, sometimes without even bothering to pretend to be refugees. It is not surprising that under such conditions, military recruitment offices in most regions of Ukraine have their conscription plans fulfilled by less than 10 per cent. Western mercenaries, frightened by the huge losses and the absolutely beastly conditions of service that are offered to them, have also started to go home en masse.
The rapidly growing reluctance of Ukrainians to fight can also be explained by the fact that many of them begin to realize that Russia is not really their enemy or an aggressor country, as the leaders of the Kiev regime have been saying for years. Since the beginning of the war in Donbas, more than 5 million residents of Ukraine have taken refuge in Russia. They actively share their positive experiences on social media. Besides, many people have had their eyes opened after criminal attempts of the Kiev junta to ban the canonical Orthodox Church, persecute its clergy and parishioners, and confiscate church property in favor of a schismatic, political in essence, pseudo-religious organization.
If we add to this the optimistic news from the former Ukrainian regions that have recently joined Russia, it becomes obvious to many in Ukraine that they have been deceived for years. They were being told that Russia and everything Russian was an enemy, while their enemy was actually inside and was rapidly pushing the country, which enjoyed the most favorable economic and financial position of all post-Soviet republics, to a complete collapse as well as economic and political bankruptcy. How long will Ukraine survive in these conditions? The answer is quite obvious, and it is confirmed by the reports coming from the front line these days. Only a blind one can fail to notice it.
I would like to ask our Western colleagues, whom we will certainly hear chanting yet again today that they are ready to help Ukraine until the end. Who are you going to supply arms and ammunition to, if fewer and fewer Ukrainians are ready to die for the anti-people regime of Zelensky? May I remind you that no matter how many weapons the Ukrainian dictator asks for while he tours the United States with a begging bowl in hand, all of them will be either ground up by the Russian troops on the battlefield or simply abandoned. This is already recognized by leading Western military experts. And this will in no way affect the fulfillment of the goals of our special military operation that Russia launched to save the lives of the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which is demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. If you really want to help Ukraine, rid it of the anti-people regime under your control, which is ready to sacrifice all the inhabitants of its country in its own interests.
Let me also underscore how unsightly your actions appear. In order to convince American congressmen of the need to allocate more aid to Zelensky and his clique, US officials finally dropped their masks and discarded all the unnecessary, as it turns out, verbal husks such as democracy, freedom, human rights, etc. They finally told the truth, which we had warned about from the very beginning, namely: military aid to Ukraine is a profitable commercial project for the US, and 90% of the allocated funds are spent in the US to create jobs, increase tax revenues and contribute to the re-equipment of the US military and allies through the disposal of obsolete military equipment in Ukraine. This is exactly how this case is being cynically presented now. All our colleagues in the United Nations who have been following this story now can see it for themselves. And they can make sure that in this whole situation, there is no benefit and no positive scenario for Ukraine, which, just as we warned, turned out to be a bargaining chip in someone else's geopolitical game.
One more point before I conclude. Perhaps, some of our colleagues find it "ear-grating" that we call the head of the Kiev regime not only a Western puppet but also a dictator. It is clear that in Western political culture it is not customary to help dictators (with the exception of the United States, which, as history shows, does not care whom to help). But if you look at the state of democracy in Ukraine, you will see more and more evidence of it that emerged lately. I have already mentioned the cancelation of presidential elections; blatant violations of religious freedom; corruption and nepotism. The Western media now repeat these stories over and over. There are reports about the fight against dissent and opposition, including the banning of opposition media. Under Zelensky’s rule, all these phenomena have become unprecedented even for Ukrainians, and that was long before the beginning of our special operation. Thousands if not tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned and tortured just for having their beliefs, but also for reading news in Russian, listening to Russian music, and so on. The use of the Russian language in the public domain is punishable, although its status, I repeat, is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine. Suffice it to recall the Ukrainian human rights advocate and anti-fascist, Ms.Elena Berezhnaya, who had been repeatedly given the floor at the United Nations, OSCE, and other international platforms. She was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine on March 16, 2022, and since then, nothing has been known about the fate of this 67-year-old woman.
Not only Ukrainian citizens but also foreigners are among those being persecuted. For example, thanks to the popular American news host, Tucker Carlson, it became known just yesterday that an American citizen, journalist Gonzalo Lira, who had been living in Kharkov and revealed the truth about the Zelensky regime in his blog, was held and tortured by the SBU since July. The US authorities have done nothing for his release and take no interest in his fate despite repeated appeals from his father.
Now I sum up the current situation once again – for the representative of the United States. So, the US authorities pump billions of dollars into a corruption-ridden dictatorship, supplying it with weapons (including enriched uranium shells and cluster munitions, the use of which affects civilians) and yet they do not stir a finger to release an American citizen in deadly danger who is being tortured in that country. Don’t you find any of it confusing? I think you must agree that it sounds very much like a plot from a Hollywood action movie, in the finale of which the good and just forces must intervene to right some wrongs. Except that life is not a movie, and in real life, villains may lecture others and teach democracy and human rights.
Nevertheless, I can assure you that this story is also bound to have an ending soon enough, which you and others who favor Zelensky's regime are not going to like, but which will come anyways whether you like it or not. You have worked hard for this ending and so you deserve it just the way it is going to be. I advise you to prepare for it and draw the necessary conclusions as soon as possible, before the sinking Kiev regime pulls you down the vortex.
Thank you.
