Statement by Chargé d'Affaires a.i. Dmitry Polyanskiy at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine
Mr. President,
I would like to start by congratulating the Pakistani delegation on successfully completing its presidency, and we wish every success to the colleagues of Panama.
It is extremely regrettable that the work of the Security Council, including the first day of your presidency, is being turned through the efforts of Ukraine and its Western patrons into a “Groundhog Day” of sorts. It is as if yesterday the representative of Kiev was not sitting in this very chair peddling Ukraine’s propaganda narratives about “bloodthirsty” Russia and its plans to subjugate a neighboring country, and as if the European sponsors of the regime were not reciting their senseless mantras about how Moscow is allegedly not ready for peace.
Colleagues,
Why couldn’t we discuss the topic announced for today's meeting yesterday? Especially since the tragedy in Kiev, which was mentioned in the letter from the Ukrainian Permanent Mission, took place as early as July 31, and yesterday the Ukrainian representative, basically, voiced her version (as predictable as it was) of what happened. Does the Council really allow such a waste of its time and resources when it comes to other items on the agenda? Imagine that we had held a meeting on a country situation and suddenly it clicked that we had forgotten to discuss one aspect, and therefore we reconvened the very next day to discuss that very aspect. We consider this approach by the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime to be irresponsible and unacceptable, and we believe that this is something that seriously undermines the credibility of the UNSC and its ability to deal with truly acute crises. And they even have the audacity to accuse our country of wasting the working time of UNSC members!
Moreover, by indulging the Kiev regime in classifying discussions on the Ukrainian crisis into “right” and “wrong” ones, Western delegations are clearly demonstrating their blatant desire to undermine efforts to establish peace in Ukraine, which we have repeatedly exposed in our statements, including in my statement yesterday.
Mr. President,
Let’s go back to the formal reason for convening our today’s meeting. In the early hours of July 31, 2025, the Russian Armed Forces were carrying out the task of demilitarizing Ukraine and launched a multiple strike using high-precision long-range weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles against the military-industrial complex of that country, including a military airfield, munition depots and warehouses with missile weapons and components for the production of UAVs. All designated military targets were hit. Let me stress once again that we are talking exclusively about facilities having to do with Ukraine's military potential. This was confirmed by videos posted by Ukrainian users on social media, which clearly show secondary detonations of ammunition at the facilities hit, with some of them placed in the civilian sector in violation of IHL. In contrast, our armed forces, as was the case before, acted in strict compliance with international humanitarian law and did not target civilian objects.
Now let’s talk about the alleged strike on a residential building in Kiev, which resulted in civilian casualties – well, military experts who analyzed available videos concured that there was only one reason for the tragedy. Just as was the case previously, it was the reckless deployment of Ukrainian air defense systems in a densely populated urban areas and incompetent use thereof. In the course of the special military operation, we have received abundant confirmation that it is Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles that pose the main danger to the civilian population of this country, and Ukrainians are well aware of this and openly comment on these situations. If the Ukrainian army had observed international humanitarian law, such tragedies could have been averted. The civilian population is not suffering from direct Russian strikes.
But the expired princeling who entrenched himself in Kiev does not bother about alleviating the plight and deprivation of the civilian population, what he is thinking about is how to pass off the situations he himself provoked as targeted Russian strikes. His only goal is to save his own skin and convince his sponsors to continue providing military and financial support for his declining dictatorial and utterly corrupt regime. Abusing the UNSC in an attempt to shift responsibility for the deaths of their own citizens is a favorite tactic of Ukrainian state propaganda machine. It is no coincidence, as many observers have noted, that the most high-impact tragedies miraculously occur on the eve of or during foreign visits by the head of the Kiev clique, when he is desperate to get pity from another country or when he wants to beg for a new tranche of military or financial aid. At the same time, no one seems to notice the fact that the Ukrainian armed forces themselves launch up to several hundred drones against our territory every day, deliberately targeting civilian objects in a futile attempt to sow panic in our country and undermine its internal stability.
Last week alone, 155 civilians were affected by the actions of the Kiev regime, two-thirds of them suffered from drone strikes. The highest number of casualties was recorded in the Belgorod, Kherson, Zaporozhye regions and the Krasnodar Territory. The Ukrainian army is deliberately targeting places where civilians gather, as well as residential buildings, public transport and emergency services. For example, last week, a driver was killed and a paramedic and a nurse were wounded when a drone struck an ambulance in the Pologovsky district of the Zaporozhye region. In the Golopristansky district of the Kherson region, three civilians were killed and five were wounded as a result of a drone attack targeting a civilian bus.
All these facts are being systematically ignored by Kiev and its patrons, as we can see today as well. In these circumstances, the relevant UN Secretariat officials are also acting in a highly hypocritical manner, preferring to feign ignorance and alleging that information regarding Ukrainian crimes is impossible to verify. All this clearly undermines the credibility of the United Nations.
Mr. President,
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again that we do not object to the Council discussing the Ukrainian crisis. What we do object is the fact that the tragedy of Ukrainians, who have become hostages of the Zelensky regime and its maniacal desire to sacrifice them for the sake of Western geopolitical interests, is being exploited in the Council for political purposes. This is also utter disrespect for and indifference to the fate of thousands of people who are suffering and dying every day in other conflicts around the world, but Western members of the UNSC are in no hurry to convene meetings on that. I do hope that sensible members of the Council and the international community will support us in this.
Thank you.
