Remarks to the press by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia on Ukraine’s Terrorist Attacks against Russia
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are here today to speak out following some regrettable developments in the work of the Security Council.
Despite the clearly terrorist nature of the recent attacks against passenger trains in the Bryansk, Kursk, and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation on 31 May, 1 and 5 June, which resulted in the death of seven civilians and left over 100 injured, some well-known delegations, whom I will not mention by name, refused to engage constructively with our draft resolution condemning these acts of terrorism.
Let me be clear: our draft was based entirely on previously agreed Security Council language, including resolution 1373, and firmly grounded in international law, including the UN Charter and the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (ICSFT). It sought to reaffirm the very basic principle of the Council’s approach in this domain, namely that terrorism is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of motivation.
We felt it important for the Council to send a strong signal demonstrating unity among its Members and serving as a deterrent. Unfortunately, that was not the case. From the very beginning these delegations resorted to politicization and artificial linkage of these terrorist attacks to “the broader context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict” – as if that could somehow excuse or alter the terrorist nature of these acts. Any justification of terrorism is unacceptable. It’s a slippery road that can bring terrorism to anyone’s home. Another episode: the same delegations do not hesitate to call by name the perpetrators of the attacks.
In search of consensus, we ceased to pursue a resolution and proposed a very minimal alternative instead: a standard press statement, identical to those the Council has issued countless times before in response to various terrorist acts around the globe. However, even that was blocked – even the most basic expression of condemnation, solidarity with the victims, and reaffirmation of counter-terrorism principles.
Some of them doubted aloud whether bombing of a passenger train can be considered a terrorist act, alleging that it could be “a valid military target under international humanitarian law in a situation of an armed conflict”. Such an approach is not only unsubstantiated, inhumane and cynical, but also does not meet appropriate legal criteria.
When passenger trains on the Russian territory are blown up with the clear intent to target civilians and spread terror, we are told that those heinous crimes cannot be called by a proper name – an act of terrorism.
Such a selective approach gravely undermines the cooperation within the Council on counter-terrorism and the universality of its relevant framework.
The Russian Federation has always called for a principled, depoliticized approach to counter-terrorism. We expected the same from others. Unfortunately, today, in this case, we have witnessed a refusal to uphold core principles simply because the victims were Russians.
Another issue is that the condemnation of terrorism does not exhaust the list of topics, on which some members of the Council are unable to engage constructively.
To our disappointment, our proposal to adopt a Statement
by the President of the Security Council in order to welcome and encourage interaction between Russia and Ukraine on reunification
of Ukrainian children, who may have lost contact with their families, was also blocked.
Last week, the Russian Federation proposed a draft Statement reflecting the fact that at the direct bilateral talks between
the representatives of Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on 2 June, upon the request of the Russian side to provide the full list of children who lost contact with their families in Ukraine. The latter handed over the list of 339 names. We also proposed that the Council welcomed this fact and urged cooperation between Russia and Ukraine on this issue as a part of the peace process.
However, certain Members of the Council who for many years falsely claimed that tens of thousands of Ukrainian children were abducted by Russia, refused to acknowledge the reality. It came as no surprise that these members, who have been actively involved in the disinformation campaign for and by the Kiev regime since the very start of the special military operation, this new development turned out to be extremely inconvenient.
Instead of welcoming the readiness of the parties to work together in good faith, some of the Security Council Members chose to condition the adoption of the presidential statement by inclusion of a number of politically-motivated provisions.
The reality is that the Russian Federation was never engaged in illegal deportations of Ukrainian children, but it has evacuated
a number of children from the battle areas for the sake of their own safety. If some of them lost contact with their relatives, we have constantly worked to reestablish it and will continue to do so. But I will repeat that we are talking about 339 names of the children, not tens of thousands, as is falsely claimed. Now, the Ukrainian list is already under conscientious scrutiny by our relevant authorities, who are ready to keep working tirelessly to restore family ties.
With this in mind, we cannot but regret the missed opportunity
for the Council to finally engage in a meaningful way in the resolution
of the Ukrainian crisis.
Thank you.
Q: The ICC complaints against the Russian Federation officials include numbers that are much higher. Why do you think the numbers are not higher? It's been cited as 20,000, but 300 seems very low. Will that move forward, even though President Trump did cancel the next round of peace talks? Thank you.
A: That is indeed a strange contradiction. I was mentioning that when I spoke, the so-called ICC is talking about tens of thousands of abducted children. We hear the same numbers from our Western colleagues and from Ukrainians themselves, but all they can come up with was a list of 339 of those that we will try to identify.
The process goes as follows. The children are evacuated from the war zones, and we try to establish contact between them and their relatives in Ukraine, if they have those. If there are relatives, and the children express clear wish to return to them, we make that happen. Some of them are orphans, some of them do not have relatives there.
But the main message is that whoever of these children were evacuated from the war zones, they were not abducted, they were brought to safety. We are trying to save lives, sometimes at the expense of the lives of those soldiers on the battlefield who evacuate them.
Q: Can we let go on despite the President Trump canceled the next round of peace talks?
A: Yes, we will continue.
Q: Can you confirm or deny whether Russian officials have offered or made arrangements to facilitate the evacuation of any Iranian government official, should tensions rise and welcome them to Russia? And also, would Russia be open to such?
A: I can neither confirm or deny. This is the first time I hear that.
Q: Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump on the weekend that he was ready for peace talks on Ukraine. Was he lying?
A: We never said we were not ready for peace talks. The last round happened in Istanbul on June 2. As far as I know from what our officials were saying and what Ukrainians were also referring to, that the next round will take place at the end of June.
Q: But we've seen a nine-hour attack last night, tens of people dead.
A: We are not striking civilian targets, unlike the Ukrainians. We are striking the military objects and the critical infrastructure that feeds into the war and feeds into the Ukrainian war machine.
Q: Last night, President Trump tweeted that all of Tehran should evacuate. Has the United States indicated to Russia what might be coming? Why did he issue that warning?
A: No, he made that statement without consulting us first.
Q: Is Russia aware of any plans for any high-level meetings between Iran and US officials?
A: There should have been another round of talks on June 15, as you know, but it was preceded by this attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear sites. Then the outburst and the escalation of the hostilities which risk to turn to all-out war. Iranians are not now – I understand them – in a position to negotiate anything while these events are happening. But President Trump said today that he would encourage, or rather instruct Vice President Vance and then his envoy, Steven Witkoff, to try to contact Iranians in an attempt to continue this process.
Q: In the light of the Russian offer to mediate between Iran and Israel, and there's also a Turkish offer to do the same, do you see any chance of these offers of mediation succeeding in the light of what is expected in the next 24 or 48 hours?
A: The offer was indeed made, both by President Putin and by President Erdogan. But I don't see any appetite for mediation on the part of Israel, at least at this time, neither in 24 or in 48 hours. But thesehostilities should be stopped because they have absolutely unpredictable consequences, given that we are talking about nuclear sites that are under threat and given that the ballistic exchange continues with heavy casualties, and now on both sides.
Q: But this is about Israel not Iran.
A: Well, I think Iran would be prepared for talks in order to continue what these attacks by Israel stopped in the context of its nuclear program, but the condition is that Israel stops the attacks first.
Q: Are you coordinating your mediation efforts on Israel and Iran with the United States?
A: There was a conversation between President Putin and President Trump the other day, and President Putin said that we are ready to do what we can do to facilitate the process. That was said directly to President Trump. So in that sense – yes, we are coordinating, but we don't have any mediation efforts on the ground.
Q: Mr. Ambassador, Russia, of course, has good relations with Iran and reasonable relations now with the United States. How concerned are you that not only this could escalate into a wider war, but into a nuclear war?
A: We have good relations with Israel, too. Well, the pretext for the strikes is alleged Iranian military nuclear program, which nobody was able to confirm, including the IAEA. There are outstanding issues between Iran and IAEA, but first they are minor, and the IAEA cannot testify that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb. But there are outstanding issues that were subject of inspections, of talks between Iran and the IAEA, and that one day or the other should have been resolved. But it suddenly stopped with these attacks.
Of course, there is a danger of at least nuclear leakage because Israelis are bombing nuclear facilities. Natanz was bombed, Fordow is under threat. There is a nuclear power plant that we are basically building for the Iranians in Bushehr.
The risk of at least nuclear radiation is there. As regards a nuclear war – God forbid, of course. Iran doesn't have a bomb. It claimed so. It said it is against the laws that they established themselves. But the level of conventional exchange is so high that, of course, it risks a wider confrontation that can conflagrate the whole Middle East.
That is a real risk. That is a risk, not just for the region, because it's already a geopolitical thing.
Q: What do you see as the implications for the world if the United States actively comes out supporting Israel?
A: The United States is supporting Israel right now, by supplying weapons in particular, and politically too. I understand your question, whether the US will be involved militarily. I hope not. President Trump was speaking about that. He conditioned his non-involvement by non-attacks by Iran on the US military facilities. I hope that will stay that way. We have enough confrontation already.
Q: Will Russia take any specific actions to stop Israel's attacks on Iran?
A: What do you mean by specific actions?
Q: For example, speak again to President Trump because he said he isn’t interested in a ceasefire. For example, Mr. Putin may talk to Benjamin Netanyahu.
A: Yes, he talks to everybody. We are doing what we can in this situation. But in order to make people tango, they need to agree to dance tango. So far, we don't see it.
Q: What is the specific action in the Security Council?
A: We had a briefing last Friday where we were quite unequivocal on what is happening. Our country in particular. We called for the meeting on the request of the Islamic Republic of Iran, supported by some other Council members. Then we have consultations where we tried to pursue a product by the Council, which we failed. I don't think I have to explain to you the reasons why.
Thank you.
