Statemenet by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine
Mr. President,
Before I begin, I would like once again to express my objections to your decision to allow three EU member states to participate in today's meeting under Rule 37. We have already repeated on numerous occasions that one statement from the European Union reflecting the general position of the member states on this issue would suffice at the Security Council meeting on Ukraine. This is all the more disappointing since you yourself, Mr. President, at the beginning of your “watch” committed to streamlining the issue of participation under Rule 37. We view this as an example of “double standards” and inconsistency.
We have just listened to our hypocritical Western colleagues yet again wailing about the recent strikes by the Russian Armed Forces that targeted infrastructure related to the Kiev regime's military capabilities. Indeed, these attacks proved to be massive and effective.
Among the targets hit, there were a military educational institution in Poltava where specialists in radar and electronic warfare were trained, and a hotel in Krivoy Rog where Ukrainian intelligence officers resided. Among other objects destroyed, there were Ukraine's critical energy and airfield infrastructure, fuel depots, arsenals of Western aircraft and artillery ammunition, drone manufacturing facilities, storage sites for uncrewed vessels, and sites for temporary stationing of nationalist formations and foreign mercenaries.
What makes these strikes so specific is that they targeted a significant number of foreign instructors, specialists and mercenaries. Therefore, those who are following this issue can anticipate a large number of obituaries for sudden demise of high-ranking American, British, French, Polish and Swedish military personnel. From the very beginning, we warned that those who come to help Zelensky's clique sustain its military potential or come to fight in the ranks of the Ukrainian army become our legitimate targets. And we see more and more citizens of western countries among those who are dying in Ukraine, which only confirms that the West is “up to its ears” in the Ukrainian conflict and is now making incredible efforts to ensure that Zelensky’s regime can stay afloat at least for some time. And these efforts, of course, include the ongoing supply of western arms to the Kiev junta, which we will discuss in detail at a separate meeting we requested to be held on September 13.
Unfortunately, the recent days have not been without tragedies, which have already become a "hallmark" of the flawed Ukrainian air defense system. For example, on August 30, 7 people, including a child, were tragically killed and another 77, including 18 children, were injured in Kharkov due to an error in the operation of Ukrainian air defense. The anti-missile was supposed to self-destruct, but it did not. There were many other similar incidents. These incidents happened for the same reason as was the case in the past (and we have repeatedly pointed to it): Ukrainian air defence assets are deployed in residential areas of Ukrainian cities in clear violation of the principles of IHL, which in other cases our Western colleagues so actively urge us to observe. They might find it interesting to learn that the Ukrainian army not only openly places its firing positions in schools, kindergartens and hospitals, but also uses ambulances and school buses for transportation of the military personnel. Two of such buses with the sign "Children" were involved in accidents in Ukraine in recent days, and the fact that the military personnel was inside was documented on social networks by outraged Ukrainian users.
Mr. President
The strikes we have delivered in recent days have indeed been very painful for the Kiev regime. They triggered hysteria in Ukraine, and today our western colleagues are also caught in the hysteria. I want to ask them a question: What did you expect when the “expired” Ukrainian leader, who you control, opted for the Kursk adventure rather than engaging in peace negotiations, which he and his subordinates discussed with mediators from the countries of the Global South? What did you count on when the Ukrainian ringleader struck that heavy blow (mainly prepared by the West) against this peaceful Russian border region? Didn't you warn him that such actions would inevitably be followed by just retribution and reprisal?
And this is only the beginning. The Ukrainian thugs who invaded the Kursk region a little over a month ago unleashed real terror against civilians. Recently, there have been exposed appalling evidence of Ukrainian Nazis' shooting three children aged 10-12 in the village of Malaya Loknya. Media outlets disseminated images of the Banderites' massacre of elderly people of this residential area, who had gathered in the square for further evacuation. In total, about 10 people became victims in Malaya Loknya. Ukrainian militants are abducting civilians who had no opportunity to evacuate from the Kursk region; lists of such persons are currently being compiled. There is also documented evidence of sexual violence by mercenaries and Ukrainian radicals against civilians. And the Ukrainian soldiers who became prisoners of war admitted that commanding officers ordered them to shoot civilians in the Kursk region if they resisted. We have video evidence that corroborates such criminal orders. All of you here are passing off the failures of Ukraine's air defence as Russian targeted attacks, and not a single word have you uttered about the crimes of Ukraine's army on the Kursk soil.
Nor have you mentioned the numerous instances of the Kiev regime shelling of peaceful Russian cities in recent days. On August 28, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used a drone with ammunition to target a civilian vehicle in the Zaporozhye region. As a result, one child died on the spot and four people were injured. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the drone operator can see his target perfectly well, which makes such attacks deliberate. On August 29, five Ukrainian drones struck a hospital in the Kherson Region, a nurse was injured.
On August 30, they deliberately shelled Belgorod and the Belgorod region with cluster munitions from Czech-made Vampire MLRSs. Five civilians were killed, dozens were injured, including minors. Many residential buildings, private houses, cars and other civilian objects were damaged.
On September 1, the Zelensky regime launched a massive attack targeting 15 Russian regions. The air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 158 different unmanned aerial vehicles.
On September 2, the Kiev junta carried out a deliberate missile attack on one of the kindergartens in Belgorod. It was completely destroyed. Fortunately, there were no casualties thanks to the decision by local authorities to suspend the work of kindergartens and schools in unsafe areas of the city.
These massive attacks were carried out in densely populated areas on September 1-2 – at the very beginning of the school year, when many children went to school. This fact proves that it is children who are the main target of the Kiev regime.
On September 3, Ukrainian drones targeted a church and a social infrastructure facility in the village of Gruzskoye in the Belgorod region, deliberately dropping explosives on them. At the time of the terrorist attack, there were 10 people in the church – warshippers and workers. As a result, the priest was concussed.
On the same day, the Sokol market was shelled in Donetsk, two children – born in 2011 and 2009 – and a man were killed, and eight people, including children, were injured.
In total, since February 2022, there were reported 16,434 attacks on civilian infrastructure in the Belgorod Region, including 9,306 attacks with artillery and MLRS, as well as 7,128 drone attacks. This resulted in the deaths of 245 civilians, including 17 children. 1,483 people were wounded, including 112 children. 34,599 civilian objects were damaged.
Since August 1 alone, as a result of the Kiev regime’s attacks on the Belgorod region, 10 local residents have been killed and 157 people have been wounded, including 14 children. There have been damaged two hospitals, 13 shopping centers and stores, two cultural centers, five administrative buildings, an Orthodox church, three industrial enterprises, two gas pipelines, four power lines, a gas station, 48 residential buildings (1,037 apartments), 140 private homes, 446 civilian vehicles, and five units of agricultural machinery. Yesterday, the Kiev regime carried out yet another massive attack on residential buildings and civilian facilities in several Russian regions, resulting in deaths and injuries.
I would like to stress that there was neither military infrastructure nor military personnel located in the immediate vicinity of these civilian objects. To be honest, we have long ceased to be surprised at the blatant double standards of the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime. In such situations they get plagued by “selective blindness”, the disease they suffered from for all 8 years as the Kiev regime shelled peaceful Donbass, inter alia under the guise of the Minsk Agreements.
The same blindness grips the United States and its satellites when the Kiev junta exposes its Nazi nature. This nature manifests itself in the glorification of Nazi henchmen and Hitler’s collaborators who have on their hands the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies and Ukrainians executed by nationalist Ukrainian punishers. It also becomes visible to the naked eye when we see Ukrainian soldiers' images on the Internet, where they are even not trying to conceal numerous Nazi symbols, flags and emblems.
Only few people in the West can summon the courage to acknowledge this shameful issue. Thus, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, during his visit to the Holocaust Museum in one of the Slovak cities said the following – "We all talk about fascism, Nazism, and yet we tacitly tolerate the fact that there are units running around Ukraine which have a very clear designation, which are linked to movements that we now consider dangerous and forbidden… The international community should recognize that troops using Nazi insignia, who often appear to act as such, cannot fight in Ukraine.” Once again, I stress: this kind of rhetoric is not something you hear very frequently in the West. Much more frequently we encounter attempts to either hush up facts that may bring shame on the Kiev regime or even to play into the hands of Ukrainian propagandists. Here is, for example, the position of Canada, whose authorities are hesitating whether to make public (as they planned to do at the request of Holocaust victims) a list of 900 Nazi criminals who fled to this country after the defeat of Nazi Germany. One argument put forward against this move is that disclosing the names could make the Ukrainian community in Canada feel uncomfortable. And it didn't feel uncomfortable a year ago, in September 2023, when the House of Commons of Canada welcomed and honored former SS soldier Yaroslav Gunko who served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division Galicia, and that celebration was attended also by the head of the Kiev regime.
It is hardly surprising that in such conditions of complete nonresistance from the West, Nazism is flourishing in Ukraine. Everyone, from soldiers to diplomats, worships to Nazi criminals Thus, the Ukrainian embassy in Japan reported on X that on September 3, the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan S. Korsunsky “paid tribute to the Yasukuni Shrine and mourned those who lost their lives for their country.” The 14 people he mourned are known as Class A war criminals convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo Trial), whose ashes rest at Yasukuni. It is these criminals that the Ukrainian diplomat serving the Nazi regime qualifies as “those who lost their lives for their country.”
The main Japanese media outlets, of course, simply ignored this event. And the Japanese government continues, as if nothing had happened, to cover up for the Kiev regime and supply it with weapons.
In this regard, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this date – September 3 – was not chosen by chance. On this day, Russia and many other countries celebrated the 79th anniversary of the Victory over militaristic Japan and the end of World War II. It is obvious that this demarche by the representative of Ukraine was dictated by the desire to rewrite history.
Mr. President,
In Russia, we will never tolerate attempts to whitewash those who perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity in a number of western countries. In particular, the Japanese leadership has not yet repented for its aggression against a number of states, including the USSR in the Far East, which, incidentally, was a condition for its UN membership. Now Tokyo and its Western allies even have the audacity to make vague and inappropriate accusations that the USSR is allegedly responsible for unleashing the Second World War.
Under such circumstances, it is quite logical that in recent years the western camp, including Germany, Japan and Italy, has voted against our annual resolution on the inadmissibility of glorifying Nazism and whitewashing Nazi criminals. The West's policy towards the Kiev regime clearly shows that fighting Nazism and neo-Nazism is not on its agenda today. But it is precisely what we are going to do. We will not tolerate Nazis and neo-Nazis on our soil. And this is one of the goals of our special military operation. Therefore, rest assured that the Ukrainian Nazis and militarists will suffer the same fate as their Japanese and German predecessors.
Thank you for your attention.
