Right of Reply by Konstantin Vorontsov, Deputy Head of the Russian Delegation, at the General Debate in the First Committee of the 78th session of the UNGA
Mr. President,
I congratulate you on your election to this office and wish you all success in your work. Let me assure you that the Russian delegation will provide you all possible assistance in conducting the substantive discussions.
We refuse to tolerate the continuing unscrupulous and hypocritical attempts by Western states to distort the true root causes of the Ukraine crisis by putting the whole blame on Russia. We also call on the representatives of the First Committee, the General Assembly and the Secretariat to refrain from politically motivated statements on Ukraine topic, take a balanced and equidistant attitude and listen carefully to the opinions of all member states without exception, so as to prevent the group of Western states from politicizing the work of the UN General Assembly, blurring its mandate and turning it into an instrument for exercising political pressure, including in the context of the situation in Ukraine and in Donbass.
The Ukraine crisis did not emerge in February 2022. Throughout the whole period after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the US and its satellites had nurtured anti-Russian and neo-Nazi sentiments in Ukraine, cultivated hatred against Russia and everything that is Russian, squeezed out the Russian language, culture and history and had been engaged in the military exploration of its territory. In 2008 the NATO opened its door to Ukraine, having de facto promised it a membership in the alliance.
All of this created an immediate threat to the security of Russia.
In February 2014 an unconstitutional military coup-d’état happened in Kiev with the support of the US and the EU, which brought nationalist radicals to power. The Russian-speaking population refused to accept their new rules. In March, Crimea reunited with Russia. Other regions faced an outbreak of repressions.
In April 2014, the Kiev regime engaged the army to suppress protests by the people of Donbas who tried to defend their rights and identity. A civil war broke out as a result. The Minsk Agreements helped to prevent it from spilling over to the whole country. They made a politico-diplomatic settlement of the conflict possible but Kiev, supported by the West, sabotaged their implementation and was preparing itself for a revanche – something the ex-leaders of Ukraine, France and Germany publicly admitted to last year. For seven years the Armed Forces of Ukraine continued to shell houses and civil infrastructure in Donbas. Simultaneously, Ukrainian authorities established a harsh blockade against the region. As it turned out later, they we planning to seize it by force in March 2022.
Throughout these years, Russia was facilitating a dialogue between Kiev and Donbass and implementation of the Minsk Agreements by the parties; it was actively engaged in the work of the Contact Group and the Normandy format. We tried to reach an agreement with the US and NATO on mutual security guarantees and proposed them to sign respective treaties in late 2021 – an offer that was rejected.
In the meantime, NATO countries were actively militarizing Ukraine and conducted on its territory military exercises of an ever-growing scale. In February 2022, at the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Zelensky voiced his claims to possess nuclear weapon, something that posed real risks for Russia and global security.
That same month, the Armed Forces of Ukraine provoked an escalation in Donbass by intensifying the shelling. Over 100,000 people from the region were forced to flee to Russia. As a result, we were left with no other choice but to recognize the independence of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and to launch, on February 24, 2022, the special military operation to protect Donbass, demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and to eliminate the threats coming from its territory. And we will definitively succeed in reaching our goals.
Thank you.
