Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC Open Debate on Leadership for Peace
Main statement:
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Our debate today is taking place at an extremely difficult but historic moment for the whole world. Perhaps never since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 has our planet been as close to global conflict as it is today. We have an unequivocal answer as to how we found ourselves at such a dangerous threshold: in an effort to preserve their own dominance in the world, the US and its NATO and EU allies are being drawn ever deeper into war with Russia in order to keep their anti-Russian project in Ukraine afloat.
The root cause of the current crisis is certainly not the United States' efforts to save by hook or by crook the Zelensky regime that is rapidly going broke and is failing so spectacularly on the frontline. And even less so is it Russia's natural desire to eradicate the security threats that arouse after the 2014 anti-constitutional coup in Kiev. The root causes lie much deeper, and we all understand this very well. This summer's anniversary NATO summit tore all the masks off the collective West, it was clearly stated there that the Alliance's longstanding core mission is to defeat Russia, a nuclear power, on the battlefield. And, as we have discovered from recently declassified US State Department documents, the objective to destroy Russia, to exclude it from any security fameworks, was formulated in Washington immediately after the collapse of the USSR.
Moreover, this objective is taking on new significance and a more concrete shape through the efforts of Russophobic ‘young Europeans’ who have obtained key positions in NATO and the European Union. Here is, for example, what Kaja Kallas from the ‘flourishing garden’, says about Russia (by the way, her candidacy has been recently approved by EU leaders to take over from Mr. Borrell: “There are many different nations a part of Russia…If you have more like small nations, it’s not a bad thing if the big power is actually [made] much smaller.” How, I wonder, do Brussels imagine the prospects of Russia's cooperation with politicians having such views?
At the same time, the appetites of NATO – which has completely taken over the EU and until the end of the Cold War was positioned solely as a counterweight to the Warsaw Pact – are not limited exclusively to Russia. Now, including at the aforementioned anniversary Washington summit, the leaders of NATO countries have publicly declared their claims to play a dominant role not only in the Euro-Atlantic, but also in the Asia-Pacific region. They stated that the Alliance is still guided by the objective to defend its members, but supposedly for this purpose, they need to extend their dominance to the entire Eurasian continent and adjacent sea areas. This includes the creation of ‘closed’ alliances of ‘small geometry’ like AUKUS and various kinds of ‘trilateral and ‘fourlateral” security partnerships.
NATO's military infrastructure is rapidly advancing into the Pacific and is obviously aimed at undermining the ASEAN-centric architecture that has been shaped for decades by the principles of equality, mutual interests and consensus. Willing to substitute the inclusive mechanisms established around ASEAN, the US and its allies are knocking up closed, confrontational structures subordinate to them. In order to contain Russia and China (and other countries whose independent policies are perceived as a challenge to its hegemony), the West, through its aggressive actions, has itself doomed the system of globalization to failure, although this very system was designed along western lines. Any manifestation of an independent political will is immediately suppressed by unlawful unilateral sanctions. Washington has done everything to blow up (as well literally, if we recall the Nord Stream terrorist attack) the foundations of mutually beneficial energy cooperation between Russia and Germany, as well as between Russia and Europe as a whole. As a result, Europe is rapidly losing its wight as an independent political actor and embracing the unfavorable role of an economic and political “tiddler”, dependent on any whim of the American suzerain.
Dear Colleagues,
Humankind is faced today with an existential crisis. The reason for that is that Western countries under the leadership of the USA are so carried away by the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, that they have lost the understanding that a global conflict between key players is likely to trigger a global catastrophe. Western elites, who are likely to still be living in the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations that emerged after World War II, have abandoned the principles of realpolitik based on national interests and indivisible security. Realpolitik implies that strengthening the security of one state should not undermine the security of another. Denial of that thesis manifests, in particular, in the unrestrained expansion of NATO; and finally this may create a real threat of the situation sliding into an uncontrolled escalation, which is well felt by our partners from the countries of the Global South. Thanks to the “efforts” of Washington and its satellites, the system of global “checks and balances” and of fundamental agreements in the field of arms control has been almost completely destroyed. The US is trying to level unfounded accusations against Russia in this regard, but, as we say, we take a note of every step.”
In such circumstances, what we are witnessing today is a decline of professional diplomacy and a decay of a culture of dialogue, which has been fully supplanted by threats and militaristic statements. This fully manifests itself in ‘megaphone diplomacy’ that dominates the Security Council and the UN as a whole. As a result, the channels of crisis communication have degenerated, and almost disappeared. Thus, without such ‘insurance’, which once allowed humankind to survive the Cold War, the world have become defenseless, and any provocation or ill-considered step could trigger a global conflict.
Given NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, such a scenario becomes increasingly plausible. I will not dwell today on our assessments of the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis and the events that compelled us to launch our special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, which was in full compliance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. We have spoken about this on numerous occasions, including on the UN platform, for example yesterday, and we have repeatedly proposed realistic settlement formulas that would make it possible to stop hostilities.
It is now for Zelensky’s clique to decide whether to accept them or not. As a matter of fact, they already know that each of our new peace proposals is objectively less favorable for Ukraine, given the dynamics on the battlefield and the rapid self-destruction of the Ukrainian state. Let us recall the Minsk agreements and the final document of Istanbul, which was torpedoed by London and Washington. Now Ukraine’s authorities are kicking themselves lamenting the missed opportunities, but the train, as we say, is gone. Today we have heard the same hackneyed mantras from our Western colleagues calling on Russia to withdraw its troops in order to ‘stop the war’. Let me remind you in this connection that we deployed troops in 2022 precisely to stop the bloody massacre that Kiev had unleashed against its own citizens in the east and south-east, which the West has persistently tried to ignore since 2014.
Therefore, Western recipes for resolving the conflict will not work. This was clearly demonstrated by the pseudo-peace conference in Bürgenstock, which no one was enthusiastic about except for the Zelensky regime and its Western sponsors themselves. The scheme proposed by Mr. Borrell, already mentioned today, makes more sense to us: ‘I know how to finish the war in Ukraine. I can finish the war in Ukraine in a couple of weeks just by cutting the supply." But at the same time, the top European diplomat makes a reservation that the West must do everything possible to prevent Russia from winning the war. This very argument is stipulated also in the documents of the 2024 Washington Summit of NATO. Consequently, the Ukrainian crisis is only one specific element of the confrontation policy towards Russia that the West consciously opted for long before 2022 events. And if we have anything to discuss with our Western colleagues, it is this issue, but in no way the issue of saving the skin of Zelensky and his cronies. We are to discuss how to get out of the spiraling escalation that threatens to destroy all life on Earth. And we, unlike Washington and its allies, have always been ready for such conversation and are still willing to engage in it.
Distinguished colleagues,
I hope that everyone sitting in this chamber understands that we must stop this rapid degradation of the situation in the world. Let us do that at least for the sake of future generations who have so far been unable to make politicians in Washington, Brussels and London hear their appeals, as those politicians are too busy with implementing their geopolitical projects and can hear nothing.
And we are able to do that, even though it will not be easy. To begin with, as in the past, we once again need to reach consensus on the basic parameters of peaceful coexistence, which should be underpinned by the principle of non-interference in internal affairs and respect for the sovereign equality of States and their security interests. What is also needed here is a new global “security equation” and guarantees that it will be respected.
We are convinced that the UN can also play its part in this “equation”, since it is the UN Charter that is the cornerstone of the entire system of international law, while the so-called ‘rules-based order’ is premised solely on the interests and whims of Washington and its satellites. It is only the compliance with the UN Charter that can drive the most painless transition to genuine multilateralism, which will benefit all states of the world, including the United States. The sooner Washington understands this, the safer our world will be.
As early as at the end of 2021, Russia proposed to the United States and NATO draft documents on mutual security guarantees. They included the principles of inadmissibility of nuclear war, non-damage to the security of the Parties, non-deployment of military capabilities in border areas where it could be perceived by the other side as a threat, and many other important elements. In essence, these are the measures of building trust and transparency in the Euro-Atlantic region that were brought to naught due to the collapse of the arms control treaty system triggered by the West. Unfortunately, the West then, at the end of 2021, arrogantly rejected the diplomatic path to resolve the piled-up contradictions in attempt to prolong its hegemony by maintaining the status quo. That was a major geopolitical miscalculation.
And the way things developed after 2021 has confirmed this. In their original form, those guarantees are probably no longer relevant. But the time is ripe to at least resume the deliberations on what a new security architecture could look like in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region, and (given the spread of the dangerous bloc mentality) we should probably think more broadly, and discuss security issues with regard to the Asia-Pacific region as well. This is especially important for the Global South, which suffers from the incessant geopolitical adventures of the US and its allies and calls for resources to be channeled into development rather than militarization. Just think how much good could the world can get if the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent by the West on the war in Ukraine were allocated to development. But the reality is that even the UN is facing a liquidity crisis today due to the US actions, not to mention some global humanitarian initiatives that are seriously underfunded.
Of course, such a conversation will be possible only when the Western countries abandon their confrontational course towards Russia and cast away the illusions that they will be able to defeat us. Those who seek, in defiance of truth and common sense, to demonize our country and to threaten us must realize that in no way is it possible to defeat a nuclear power, and with such military and economic potential as Russia. Let me be blunt: what the West fears the most now is not that Russia will win, but that the truth will win with us. And as a result, the countries of the world will finally cease to fear the West. And this will undermine the hegemony of the United States and its satellites. And the USA cannot imagine their existence without the hegemony, no matter what beautiful and mendacious things Western politicians, including those in this chamber, utter. Justice and equality in the developing world are to a great extent associated with Russia. Therefore, we are not a bit ashamed to enter this chamber and this building, as was tactlessly suggested by the head of the government of the country responsible for the most heinous crimes of colonialism and for most of the crises that are now on the agenda of the UN. We walk into the UN proudly and with our heads held high.
Madam President,
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that the truth can’t but win. And we’ll help with it. The processes that are under way in the world can no longer be reversed. We therefore call on our Western colleagues not to try to hold them back, but to engage in them, thus opening a new chapter of equitable international cooperation based on the principles outlined in our statement.
For all of us, there is simply no positive alternative to such a scenario. I would like to believe that Western countries still have common sense and an instinct for self-preservation, which will help them to get a grasp of this as soon as possible.
Thank you for your attention.
Right of reply:
Madam President,
Let me apologize for my American colleague who tried to spoil your debate. We do not normally exchange remarks in such a format. But, of course, I cannot ignore what he said. It is all the more surprising that these words were uttered by the representative of a state that is responsible for an overwhelming number of aggressions, crises, overthrows of democratic regimes, and human rights violations in the 20th and 21st centuries. Even recent crises have been entirely inspired, promoted and supported by the US, including the Gaza crisis, the worst crisis we have witnessed in recent times, which has already claimed the lives of 42,000 people. Were it not for the US exercising its veto five times and playing along with its Israeli ally, people had stopped dying in the Middle East long ago.
This is what I suggest that our American colleague think about. And also think about the fact that it is Western countries that have recently become increasingly isolated in the UN and in the Security Council. Now let us stop this exchange of remarks out of respect for our Slovenian colleagues.
Thank you.
