Remarks to the Press by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia on the Bucha Hoax
Vassily Nebenzia: Dear colleagues, last time I was here at the stakeout, it was about the report by the Secretary-General on the inclusion of the Russian Armed Forces into the list of those who commit sexual crimes. And I commented on that, but when asked questions afterwards, somebody asked me about Bucha. And this is the right moment and opportunity to comment on this, because, as I said last time, Minister Lavrov sent a letter to the Secretary-General with 12 questions that we circulated before this stakeout for you to understand what the questions were. And we received a letter from the Chef de Cabinet that accompanied the letter of the Secretary-General that was supposed to be a reply to the letter by the Minister.
As you know, the 3rd of April marked the fourth anniversary of the provocation in Bucha – an event which, as confirmed by numerous experts, bears all the hallmarks of a cynically staged fabrication.
Russia has been accused of committing mass atrocities and war crimes by killing civilians in March 2022. Western governments and the media immediately put the blame on Russia, and the incident has become a backdrop and a watershed to the derailing of the Istanbul peace negotiations.
That is why we have been trying to seek the truth since those days, because Bucha has become a kind of a symbol of “Russian atrocities” in Ukraine. Whether willingly or not, the Secretary-General himself participated in this campaign. Unlike Western representatives, he is accountable to the whole international community.
It was clear from the beginning that the whole plot was engineered by the Kiev regime with the support of Western intelligence agencies for political purposes. The bodies of civilians were deliberately arranged and scattered only after all Russian military personnel had withdrawn from Bucha. For nearly four days after the Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, as a goodwill gesture at the request of the Kiev authorities of that time, there was not a single mention of the dead people lying on the main street of that city.
For four years now, we have been asking the UN Secretary-General to assist in obtaining a list of victims of the staged incident. On May 1st, Minister Lavrov sent another letter to Antonio Guterres regarding the provocation in Bucha, where he posed 12 questions. We’ve, as I said, distributed them to you ahead of time.
Unfortunately, that was to no avail: more than a month later, on June 8th, we received one of those formal replies which more resembled a mockery, frankly, at least to me. We’ve seen so many times before, which evidently did not provide substantive answers to the questions we have raised.
Consistent with its continued practice of “double standards”, the UN Secretary-General once again limited himself to a standard formal response.
The Secretary-General has not responded to any of the questions we raised. Instead, he assured us that Russia received no disparate treatment in relation to the request for judicial cooperation, and that the same legal framework was applied as in the case of any other Member State. That assurance raises a very simple question: how can it be reconciled with the facts? Let’s look at those facts.
In its report on Bucha, the Human Rights Office relied on information provided by a Ukrainian State body – the Main Department of the National Police in the Kiev Region. The gravest allegations against the Russian Federation were supported by references to that body’s Facebook posts. Two of those references later became inaccessible; the remaining one, as we have already pointed out, does not substantiate the allegations in events
In other words, an unofficial, unverified and partly vanished online source was considered sufficient for a United Nations report containing extremely grave accusations against a Member State.
Yet, when the competent Russian authorities submitted an official request to verify the credibility, objectivity and underlying material used by the Human Rights Office, that request was refused and denied.
So, is this equal treatment?
The Secretary-General speaks of a “legal framework” applicable to all requests for judicial cooperation. The relevant framework is clear: Section 21 of Article V of the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations provides that the Organization shall cooperate at all times with the appropriate authorities of Member States to facilitate the proper administration of justice.
This is not a matter of convenience. It is not a matter of political preference. It is a legal obligation.
We know that the Secretariat is capable of cooperation when it chooses to cooperate. There are precedents where it went much further than anything Russia is requesting. In one recent case, at the request of Italian prosecutors, the Organization even suspended the immunity of United Nations officials so that they could testify in a national investigation.
Russia is asking nothing of that kind. We are not asking the United Nations to waive anyone’s immunity. We are not asking it to disrupt its work. We are asking for access to the materials on which the Secretariat itself relied when it leveled grave accusations against the Russian Federation.
As the Member State targeted by those accusations, we have every right to verify the material, assess its credibility, and test its validity.
But what legal framework was applied to Russia in practice? The Office of Legal Affairs asked the Human Rights Office whether sharing the information with Russia would be appropriate, and the Human Rights Office – the very office whose report, methodology and sources are in question – said no. And that was the end of the matter.
That is not a legal assessment. That is institutional self-protection.
The same office that relied on weak, unverified and inaccessible material is now allowed to shield that material from scrutiny. The same office that produced accusations is allowed to decide whether the accused State may examine the evidence. That is a conflict of interest dressed up as a procedure.
The logic is upside down. An unverified Ukrainian source is good enough for accusations against Russia. However, an official Russian request to verify that source is rejected. Confidentiality is invoked not to protect justice but to prevent scrutiny.
And this is, again, not impartiality. This is not transparency. This is not the proper administration of justice.
It is selective treatment. It is institutional bias. It is discrimination, Mr. Secretary-General. No question has been answered out of 12 that were posed.
Thank you.
Q: Thank you, Ambassador. It’s Pamela Falk from U.S. News and World Report. As you know, your President Putin rejected an offer by President Zelensky for a face-to-face. You heard what the Security Council said today – most members – about a ceasefire. Is there any effort to get talks going, or is most of what’s going to go on in the next few months on the battlefield?
A: That was extensively commented, when we had the latest Security Council briefing on Ukraine. It was commented by the President himself, by his Press Secretary, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and by my humble self when I spoke at that meeting.
What I said, repeating what has been said by others, is that Zelensky prevented himself at a certain point from talking to President Putin, issuing a decree forbidding him to engage with President Putin.
If you want to talk, we never refused, but he made it through a so-called megaphone diplomacy. He made it public. The letter was bullish.
If you want to talk, even if you forbade yourself to talk, you do it discreetly through the back channels so that it can be arranged in a proper way. But the way he addressed, of course, prevents us from engaging in talks under the conditions that he puts on the table.
Besides, after the Kiev regime openly became engaged in terrorist practices like Starobelsk, Yenakiyevo, you name it, killing scores of civilians, not as collateral damage but deliberately striking on civilian objects, President Putin and his Press Secretary said that we have no intention to engage in talks as long as these practices continue.
Q: Elaine Reyes with China Global Television Network. Ambassador, we know that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently met with Secretary-General candidate Michelle Bachelet. I’d like to get your thoughts on what you’re hearing from the different candidates so far in the race and whether you think that the current candidates can bring new energy in helping resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
A: We are not refusing any candidate that requests a meeting in the Russian capital to present herself or himself and her or his program when he’s officially nominated. And I think that it is only Maria Fernanda Espinosa and Macky Sall who have not yet visited Moscow.
We are meeting everyone. We are listening to them. We do not commit or even pledge at this stage. This is not customary. This is a discreet process that will start on the 24th of July with these rounds of straw polls, where hopefully the leader in the race would surface.
We do not comment on the preferences, and we do not comment on who is more eligible for becoming the Secretary-General.
My personal view is, and I think that is shared by many of my colleagues, at least that’s what I heard from them, that the list is not yet exhaustive. There are other names that are circulating. There are people that perhaps aspire but never announced it yet, like it was in the last elections we had in 2016, when candidates appeared at a very late stage. Finally, the current Secretary-General also came to the race at a late stage, but there were even later candidates that came to compete.
We respect former President [of Chile] and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She had many other hats in her life, Michelle Bachelet. I met her here, she came to introduce herself. I met her before when she was in a different position.
They all come to see the Security Council members, not just P5 but others as well. We talk, we discuss. They all are decent people. But who will become the Secretary-General? It’s not just an intellectual contest. It’s a matter of geopolitical and political choices. It’s the matter of agreeing in the Security Council, in particular by the P5, because without the P5 agreement on the candidate, even if she or he will receive 10 votes, that will not be the end of the race. So let’s see. We respect all the candidates that put their names forward for the position.
You asked also whether the Secretary-General can help in resolving the crisis in Ukraine. Not just in Ukraine, but in many other parts of the world. On Ukraine, we say openly – I said it in the Council, it was commented by me many times, I do not hide it, and I do not hide it not just in front of you but in front of the Secretary-General – that the UN Secretariat has divorced itself from the possibility of being instrumental in resolving the crisis in Ukraine by taking sides, basically.
This is one of the things that I was commenting today, where you clearly see that they are taking sides. We see how they comment on Ukraine, we see how they support basically one line, and I don’t think – again, I said it openly – the current UN leadership can be instrumental in even facilitating to resolve this crisis.
What regards the next Secretary-General, I don’t think that she or he will be the one to resolve it, but of course she or he can be instrumental in helping to resolve it, not just in Ukraine, but we have many other crises – Middle East, of course. I will not list them all.
I saw recently a report – one of the magazines comparing the Secretaries-General and their travel and their engagement in crisis, and the leader in that was, as far as I understand, was Kofi Annan, who was courageous enough to engage even without assurances that he would be successful, but he tried. He tried all the time, and that is what the Secretary-General should do.
Q: Denis Solovykh, TASS News Agency. Vasily Alekseevich, I would like to get back to the topic that you raised in your statement. Given the nature of the Secretary-General’s response, are there any further steps that can be taken regarding the events in Bucha?
A: We’ll continue to knock on the door. I don’t have any illusions about the sudden 180-degree change in position of the current UN Secretariat leadership or the Human Rights Office position on that issue.
But of course we’ll be attracting attention to that event, which unfortunately became, as I said, a watershed in the whole conflict, because before it we were on the verge of achieving an agreement with the Ukrainians. Then suddenly Bucha came, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and convinced Ukrainians to continue, assuring them that they would win on the battlefield.
We’ll be knocking on the door, but frankly, given the nature of replies that we have been receiving all this time, I’m not very hopeful that we’ll get anything meaningful.
Q: Can you give us an update on the status of the Russia-China draft resolution on the conflict in Iran and the Gulf? Are you planning to bring it to a vote?
A: You know that this resolution came quite early when the other was not adopted, which was vetoed by Russia and China, and we came with our draft, which was prepared carefully so that all Council members could subscribe to it.
I think I was commenting that I liked the reaction of one of the Council members in the EOV, when that Council member said that we have no issues with the resolution as such, but the fact that it was proposed by Russia prevents us from supporting it.
It is on the table. It is in the blue. You know that there is another resolution which is promoted by Bahrain and the Gulf [countries]. At a certain point, it was about to be presented to the Security Council for voting. Then the matter was put aside in the hopes that the U.S. and Iran would strike a deal.
We are seeing what is happening in the last couple of days between Iran and the U.S., and there is a serious risk of escalation despite all the efforts by the mediators, and we are grateful to Pakistan and other countries that are trying to facilitate.
But it’s not about the freedom of navigation now. It’s about more serious matters: whether the conflict would escalate and erupt into something that we would like wholeheartedly to prevent.
Q: My name is Vladimir Ilchenko, Ukrinform. I’ve got a very short and simple question. After the inclusion of the Russian military on the list of shame for sexual violence, will Moscow stop incentivizing and encouraging the sexual violence by its troops?
A: I think, Vladimir, you were not here when I came to the stakeout to comment specifically on that report, the allegations that we completely reject.
We have a strict code of conduct of the Russian military which prevents them from engaging in these kinds of practices. We saw these unsubstantiated allegations. You remember perhaps that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, at a certain point in 2022 commented that the Russian military used medicines for the raping of women and whoever. She specifically mentioned Viagra. Later she said it could not be verified, but she neither withdrew the allegation nor apologized. That’s why we do not engage in a dialogue with her completely.
We know how these reports are being drafted and who is supplying the data for these reports. We know, unfortunately, that the Russian military are subjected to cruel and sexual violence when they are prisoners of war in Ukraine.
So this is an issue which has been commented on. We completely refuted the findings of the report. It was commented by the Foreign Ministry. I made a special stakeout on it, saying that in order to level such grave allegations on one side, you should provide the evidence that would be irrefutable.
Q: Abdelhamid Siyam from the Al-Quds Al-Arabi. My question is about the Middle East, Mr. Ambassador. On June 5th, it was the 59th anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem. First, do you think this occupation would have been maintained without the support of the Western colonialist power: Europe and the United States? And do you think there is any land left for the so-called two-State solution? Is there any land left for a real independent Palestinian state?
A: Well, what we are witnessing today is not just a creeping annexation. We see this E1 project in the West Bank, which would divide the West Bank into two parts, and there will be no continuity between them.
We see what’s happening in Gaza. Security Council resolution 2803 doesn’t work, which we were saying from day one. We gave them a chance, but it never served the purpose for which it was adopted.
We hear from the Israeli government that they plan to occupy 70-some percent of the Gaza Strip, which is of course an encroachment and direct violation of the future Palestinian state territory.
And of course that couldn’t have happened without the support by certain Western governments, the names of which we all very well know. I mean, nothing to hide. Of course, Israel is emboldened by the U.S. backing on this issue, and in particular by this administration, even from its previous iteration.
Q: The U.S. House Armed Services Committee has advanced an amendment requiring a report on options for removing Russian military bases from Syria. Do you have any information regarding whether the U.S. is putting pressure on the Syrian government to end Russian presence in Syria?
A: You’re asking whether I have information on the U.S. efforts to end the Russian presence in Syria?
Maybe something happens behind the scenes which I’m not aware of. We are friends of the Syrian people first and foremost and with the government it represents. We are dealing with Syria's government and have established quite pragmatic relations with it.
We said that we are not favoring any particular leader, but we are favoring the Syrian people. If the current Syrian government is doing the right things for the Syrian people, we would always support and encourage it.
We have plans for economic cooperation. Yes, there is a Russian naval base, as you know, and there were talks by the Syrian government that we need to address the issue of how to cooperate on that in the future.
I don’t know, maybe something is happening behind the scenes which I am not aware of, as I said, but the base is still there.
On the American efforts to encourage the Syrian government to expel Russian troops, as you said, from Syria, I’m not aware, but, given the history and the experience, I would not exclude it.
