Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia requesting a procedural vote on the US proposal to convene a UNSC meeting on Ukraine

Mme.President,

The Russian Federation requests a procedural vote on the US proposal to convene this meeting of the Council.

In explanation of its proposal to convene this session, the US delegation specified that it considered the presence of Russian troops on Russian territory as a threat to international peace and security. Not only is it a blatant interference in internal affairs of the Russian state, but also an attempt to mislead the international community regarding the real situation in the region, as well as the reasons for the current global tension. In fact, we are offered to convene today because of someone’s fantasies and baseless allegations that we consistently refuted.

Besides, the format of an open meeting, coupled with the extremely provocative topic, turns this session into a classic example of “megaphone diplomacy” and working for public acclaim, which, as all of us repeatedly said, must be abandoned. We do not think it helps unite the Council. On the contrary, we are well aware that the willingness of our US colleagues to build up hysteria around their own claims about allegedly planned Russian aggression (while using the UNSC platform among other things) puts our UNSC colleagues in a very awkward situation.

This hysteria is also very harmful for Ukraine, whose President, as you all know, lately asked Western states to not make unsubstantiated drama about the Russian troops on the border, because all that hype was bad for Ukraine's economy. “We do not need this panic” – President Zelensky said. But it seems that those who pedal the issue of mythical Russian threat need this panic very much. I have in front of me quotes of Ukrainian officials about the absence of threat from Russia. In particular, it is Secretary of the National Security Council of Ukraine and Ukraine’s Defense Minister. President Zelensky directly said that he did not see the activity that some are speaking about today. I will not do the quoting now, but we are ready to circulate those materials later.

I call on all colleagues to act in a principled manner and not let the UNSC platform be used to spread propaganda of our Western colleagues.

We also remind the UNSC members that back in December, the Russian delegation announced a plan to convene the annual discussion of the situation in Ukraine during our SC Presidency that starts tomorrow. The seventh anniversary of the adoption of the Minsk Package will provide a good opportunity to reiterate Security Council’s commitment to resolution 2202 that constitutes the international legal basis for domestic Ukrainian settlement. The event is scheduled for 17 February. If our American colleagues urgently need to release “for the public” any additional signals on the issue of Ukraine, they can as well do it at the aforementioned meeting.

We call on all reasonable UNSC members to not support this provocative proposal and show respect for the UN Charter and the Security Council.

Thank you.