Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC briefing on deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Ukraine and their consequences
Mme.President,
Western states insist that they do not take part in the conflict, but rather “help Ukraine defend itself”. But in reality, it is the exact opposite. The West is fighting a proxy-war on Russia in Ukraine.
Since the previous meeting of the Security Council on the topic of Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, the flow of arms has not declined and continues to intensify. This proves that NATO is willing to escalate. Clearly, they are not interested in a peaceful settlement. Lately, the EU High Commission for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy generated another gem of a saying. It goes as follows, “I know how to end the war immediately: I stop providing military assistance to Ukraine, and Ukraine has to surrender in a few days. That's it, the war is over”. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace also felt like opening up his heart. “The UK will continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine so that other Western countries are not tempted to force the Kiev authorities to make concessions in order to achieve peace”, he said.
Deliveries of ever more powerful weapons systems to Kiev, combined with data sharing and the training of Ukrainian soldiers on their territories make these states not only parties to the armed conflict with Russia under the 1907 Hague Conventions on the rights and obligations of neutral powers in naval and land warfare, but also accomplices to the war crimes of the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalist battalions.
The goals of the collective West are obvious to all, Western politicians do not conceal them. And this is not the principles of morality and highest humanistic values, far from that. By using Ukraine as a testing site, they want to drag out this conflict ,“until the last Ukrainian”, hoping to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. This is based on an obvious desire to impose their will and their so-called rules on everyone.
Huge money is spent on weapons for Ukraine. Billions of US dollars are migrating from the pockets of taxpayers to the accounts of Western military industries. Last December, the US Congress approved allocation of $48 billion for “military assistance” to Ukraine. Recently, they announced another tranche of $1.2 billion. Not long ago, J.Borrell reported that the total assistance to Kiev from the states and ogranizations of the European Union stood at €16 billion. He proposed to allocate extra €3.5 billion to the European Peace Fund, which is used to pay for arms deliveries to Ukraine. It’s time to call a spade a spade and change the name of this body to European War Fund. The European Commission plans to allocate €1.5 billion to manufacturing ammunition. Germany is reported to plan on sending in its biggest share – €2.7 billion. This so-called assistance will be armored vehicles, Leopard tanks, air defense systems, hundreds of guided missiles, recon drones and logistical support vehicles. Altogether, NATO countries, as Secretary General Stoltenberg pointed out, have allocated more than €65 billion to Ukrainian armed forces. To compare, in 2021-2023 they spent only $18 billion on food security. So much for the true priorities of the collective West.
This being said, listings of their deliveries are expanding to include much more than just defensive weapons. European states report to have sent about 600 tanks to Ukraine. Deliveries of combat aviation, bomber and fighter aircraft, are negotiated. Trainings for combat air crews take place in Europe. Germany, media says, is training special ops forces.
The West simply uses Ukraine as a testing ground while not in the least caring for its people. The fact is well illustrated by London’s decision to supply projectiles with depleted uranium to Kiev. The UK knows perfectly well what terrible implications for the environment and people’s health this may have. 1999 NATO bombings (where 15 tonnes of depleted uranium were used) still backfire on the health of the Serbs. Numerous evidence of growing incidence of oncology diseases and other pathologies were recorded. Iraq also has some firsthand experience – Americans dropped on it hundreds of thousands such projectiles. Just to be on the safe side, the UK, and namely its Minister of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey, hurried to say that London did not have to track usage of depleted uranium projectiles and “had no obligation to help clear up DU rounds” upon the ending of the conflict.
With equal cynicism, London tries to shed responsibility for the use of Storm Shadow systems by Kiev. On 12 and 13 May, UAF military aircraft used the British Storm Shadows and the American ADM-160B MALD to hit polymers-producing plant “Polypak” and meat-processing factory “Milam” in Lugansk. A fire started that ruined residential buildings and injured civilians, including 6 children. This does not seem to be a concern to the British, for they have pledged to provide 400 more missiles of the same kind, as well as air-defense systems and UAVs with more than 200 kilometer range.
How many of them will fall on the heads of civilians? Attacks of the Kiev regime against civilian infrastructure and peaceful population of the Donbas happen daily. Donetsk has been living under fire ever since 2014. At present, they report civilian casualties once every few days. Western states are perfectly aware of that, but when it is about Donetsk or Lugansk, they never recall such things as protection of civilians or norms of international humanitarian law. They do not care that these attacks use the weapons that they provided to the Kiev regime. We cited numerous cases when American HIMARS were used against civilian targets. Besides, Washington Post cited some Ukrainian officials admit that in fact, the US are in full control of some combat operations, whereas Kiev normally cannot use the US-supplied systems before the American military either confirm or share the coordinates of the target.
Hypocrisy of Western states becomes even more obvious if we consider their direct violation of international agreements and commitments regarding the transfer of weapons and military equipment. We spoke about it in detail during the open debate of the Security Council on 10 April, where we gave concrete examples of extremely negative consequences stemming from such violations. Other countries from across the globe also called to prevent the uncontrolled spread of weaponry.
Recently, independent journalist Seymour Hersh reported that even in early stages of the special military operation, the weapons that Western states were delivering to Ukraine moved on to Poland, Romania and other neighboring countries, because Ukrainian commanders at different levels either transferred weapons personally or dumped them to black markets. Even the defense Ministry of Great Britain admitted that not all shipments made it to the conflict zone. We said this on many occasions. We warned that Western weapons would end up in the hands of organized crime, terrorists, and armed groups not only in Europe, but worldwide.
This aspect turns out quite embarrassing for Western delegations, so they try to sidetrack it. By the same token, the ignore numerous crimes by Zelensky’s regime. They dismissed even the words by Chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Mr. Kirill Budanov, who said rather straightforwardly that they “have reached (i.e. killed) many public and media personalities” in Russia. The terrorist essence of the Kiev regime is clear. If in the West you bother to listen to what Kiev representatives are saying, you will realize soon enough that it is about you as well. Here is what Adviser to the Head of Zelensky’s Office, M.Podolyak, said. “It is better that European countries do not think about the possibility of cutting off the arms supply to Ukraine. Otherwise, war will start in others states. There will be a significant increase in the number of terrorist attacks in Europe. In Europe, we will no longer sit in restaurants and quietly eat croissants”.
The West knew exactly who they were bringing to power after the coup d'état in 2014 and who they had carefully nurtured before that in the interests of transforming Ukraine into an "anti-Russia”. The hateful essence of the current Kiev regime, which bends its knee before Ukrainian nationalists of the past (who committed atrocious crimes against peaceful Polish, Jewish, Russian population), showed itself to its full capacity during Kiev’s war against the Russian-speaking people in the Donbas that has lasted for years. Western countries not only failed to prevent it, but as their leaders admit today, they sabotaged the implementation of the Minsk Agreements in order to keep using the Kiev authorities in their own interests. They do not give up on this goal even today, despite their unprecedented level of involvement in this conflict.
Russia reserves the right to take all necessary measures to respond to threats to our security, the goals of the special military operation will be attained.
Thank you.
