Statement by Chargé d'Affaires a.i. Dmitry Polyanskiy at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine
Mr. President,
The Russian delegation requested today's meeting so as to draw the attention of our colleagues in the UN Security Council to the actions and statements that directly or indirectly undermine the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis. Such destructive steps have recently become significantly more frequent, casting serious doubts on good intentions of those who from the very beginning have nurtured the Kiev regime and armed it to the teeth – hardly are they willing to close this very dangerous chapter for international peace and security.
Given the political situation, many in the West today are putting on “sheep's clothing” and speechifying about diplomacy. As you all remember very well, potential of diplomacy is something that we never denied. We didn’t reject diplomacy even after the unconstitutional coup in Kiev of February 2014, which was followed by the Kiev regime's unleashing war against its own citizens in eastern Ukraine in attempt to uproot everything Russian. Back then, Russia agreed to the Minsk package of measures approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2201. The goal thereof was not only to restore Ukraine's control over the eastern part of the country, but also to determine a number of important steps to achieve that, which were for Kiev to take.
As we all are perfectly well aware today, from the get-go, the Minsk process was viewed by Kiev's Western sponsors merely as a smokescreen to hastily arm Ukraine and prepare it for war with Russia. Excited about the possibility to use Ukraine as a kind of “battering ram” to inflict military defeat on Russia, or at least to bleed us dry and weaken us, the Western sponsors of Kiev ignored all our calls to seek mutually acceptable solutions to the crisis of European security, which was triggered primarily by Ukraine's likely accession to NATO; thus, we were left with no other choice but to launch the special military operation in February 2022.
A fresh chance for diplomacy opened up after Russian and Ukrainian negotiators initialed a peace agreement in Istanbul, which could have stopped the military escalation as early as in April 2022. Let me recall here that at that time Russian troops were just a few kilometers away from Kiev and were pulled back solely as a gesture of goodwill, to prop up the progress made during the negotiations. It seemed like we had an excellent opportunity to remove this thorn so as to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and avoid destruction of cities and infrastructure in Ukraine.
But it didn’t work that way. Western curators of the Kiev regime did not even think about reconciling the two neighboring Slavic States, which are mostly populated by one people, that was not part of the plan. That is why London entered the game in the person of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and a disgusting and crude provocation was staged in Bucha to turn the world public opinion against Russia; and back then everyone was trying to convince Zelensky that with Western support and weapons he would be able to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. As a result, Ukraine continued fighting, setting all Istanbul advances aside. In fact, a full-scale NATO proxy war was unleashed against our country, in which Ukraine is merely playing the role of a private military company using Western weapons and fighting for Western interests.
No one even disputes today that this was a fatal strategic mistake on the part of the Kiev princeling. Because of it, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died, Russia had to eliminate an unprecedented amount of Western weaponry, destroy military facilities in Ukraine and everything having to do with its military potential. During this time, besides Crimea, which reunited with Russia immediately after the 2014 coup, the country lost four more regions, whose populations voted for joining Russia. What remains of Ukraine today has morphed into a corrupt one-man dictatorship, in which Ukrainians are deprived of any rights and being treated as “cannon fodder” – they are being captured on the streets and sent to the frontline against their will.
It is something that is very difficult to refute, especially given the facts that we presented at the previous UNSC briefing on Ukraine a few days ago. The saddest thing here is that Ukrainians have completely lost their voice; otherwise, they would have been able to speak out against the continuation of the war. However, the “expired” former comedian has no intention of holding elections, since after them there will be virtually no chance for him and his cronies to retain power, as even the most loyal opinion polls suggest.
And how do our Western colleagues view all this? Those who tend to look for “a mote in someone else's eye” when it comes to democracy and human rights? There is no reaction whatsoever, they remain silent, and they only bestirred themselves slightly when Zelensky's clique went after their pet pseudo-anti-corruption entities they themselves had created with the sole purpose of leveraging the Kiev leadership. In all other respects, no one is allowed in the West to speak ill of Ukraine – either good or nothing. In this regard we can’t but recall the prophetic words of outgoing Polish President Andrzej Duda who said that Ukraine, like a drowning man, will drag everyone into the depth. This is exactly what is happening, and it is not only European economies that hit the bottom along with Ukraine before our very eyes, but also the notorious Western values, which are becoming increasingly meaningless in the face of such egregious “double standards.”
Mr. President,
I think everyone who is following the developments in Ukraine has noticed that a peaceful tone in our opponents' statements is something that miraculously coincided with the depletion of the military potential not only of the Kiev regime, but also of its Western sponsors. After all, the problem today is not so much the funding for military support of Ukraine – even NATO countries suffering from the sanctions they themselves imposed on Russia would be able to find it, albeit with difficulty. The problem, first of all, is the exhausted stocks of weapons to be supplied to Ukraine. Secondly, as I have already mentioned, Ukrainians no longer want to fight, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to force them into the trenches. And even if they end up there, many try to surrender or flee at the very first opportunity – there are over 20,000 such cases per month on average, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.
Thus, the Ukrainian army is retreating on all fronts, especially after the “Kursk misadventure”, which turned out to be a disaster for Ukraine’s armed forces (we are going to discuss the results thereof separately at an informal UNSC “Arria formula” meeting in early August). Having realized this, those most realistic and pragmatic among the sponsors of the Kiev regime had finally to admit that the Ukrainians do not have the cards that would allow them to dictate their terms in the negotiations. They do not have these cards now, nor will they ever have them in the future, regardless of how hard all NATO countries try. And then the sponsors compelled the Zelensky regime, despite its resistance, to agree to negotiations with Russia. This rekindled the prospects for a peaceful settlement, and we immediately supported this scenario. To be more precise, we never deviated from such a scenario, reaffirming from day one our readiness to attain the goals of our special military operation through diplomatic rather than military means.
After that, the Istanbul negotiations were resumed, and the third round of negotiations took place there on July 23. All agreements on humanitarian tracks that were discussed earlier have been implemented. The second unprecedentedly large-scale exchange of POWs, involving approximately 1,200 people, has been completed. There is an understanding that a similar exchange will take place in the very near future. In addition, we will proceed with medical exchanges of the seriously wounded and the ill in the front lines. Moreover, in addition to the more than 7,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, we are ready to hand over to Kiev another 3,000 bodies. Our proposal to declare short-term “medical pauses” on the battlefield remains in force, it could allow to evacuate the wounded and take the bodies of demised soldiers.
In addition, Russia has fully worked through the list of 339 Ukrainian children that we received from Kiev in Istanbul. It turned out that most of them had never been on our territory, and 50 of them were adults. For our part, we raised the issue of returning Russian minors remaining on the territory of Ukraine or taken by Kiev to EU countries. We gave them a list of their names.
We also suggested that Ukraine think about setting up three working groups dealing with political, humanitarian, and military issues. We hope this initiative will be well received in Kiev. We are also ready to continue working towards harmonizing our positions vis-à-vis the memoranda which set down Russia's and Ukraine's visions regarding a final settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. We exchanged such memoranda during the second round of negotiations. All in all, we are willing to continue the negotiations in Istanbul.
Mr. President,
It would seem that such a development, when Russia and Ukraine resume negotiations in Turkey, should inspire all our international partners and is to be seen as a first step toward future agreements on a final settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. However, despite the Istanbul meetings, there are still hawks in the West, who are not happy with such a scenario. We can still hear voices of those who regard diplomacy solely as an excuse to criticize Russia and exert pressure on us. What is also railroaded is the idea that the only criterion showing Russia's willingness or unwillingness to make peace is our consent to an unconditional and lasting ceasefire, which is absolutely illogical given the context of the Ukrainian crisis.
Why is it illogical? Because we’ve already gone through such a situation, I refer to the Minsk agreements that I’ve already mentioned today. All the more so given that Ukraine's Western sponsors do not even bother to hide the fact that any pause in hostilities will be used to rearm Ukrainian units, to rotate the personnel, and prepare the Ukrainian army to resume hostilities against Russia. So why do we need this given that the Russian army is confidently advancing on all fronts, while the Ukrainian army is either on its last legs or even totally wrecked in certain areas.
Moreover, our opponents are reluctant to do anything about the root causes of the conflict that triggered a hot phase of the Ukrainian crisis, and those who are supposed to be facilitating the negotiations offer no guarantees that this will happen. In other words, they are pressuring us into agreeing to a new “Minsk,” while keeping their cards close to the chest when it comes to their real plans to revert to a proxy war against Russia using Ukraine for this, as soon as Ukraine is ready. Could anyone tell us why we would need this? And why would Ukraine need this, where people, as I already said above, are voiceless and can do nothing about the scenario imposed on them.
I would probably surprise some of our colleagues in this chamber, but such a scenario is not what our Western colleagues need either, provided, of course, that their proclaimed commitment to democratic values, respect for human rights, and the fight against corruption is not just hot air. Why would they need to cover up for a regime born of nationalism and primordial xenophobia, rooted in the inglorious history of Hitler's acolytes, who during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine eliminated hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies, and Ukrainians themselves? It is no coincidence that the Polish Sejm established July 11 as a day of remembrance for the victims of the Volyn massacre. But the Kiev regime today is teaching Ukrainian children to admire those very people who perpetrated this genocide naming streets and schools in their honor. Don’t you feel any “cognitive dissonance”?
And what can say those who champion “multiculturalism” at home and fiercely fight discrimination on the basis of language or nationality? Why are you turning a blind eye to what is being done by the Kiev regime seeking to burn out everything Russian, from the language to its speakers? And when I say “burn out” I mean it literally – suffice it to recall those burned alive on May 2, 2014, in the Trade Union House in Odessa, which, incidentally, is still a Russian-speaking city. These people were burned alive simply because they dared to stand up for their identity, for the right to speak their mother tongue and teach their children in it, as well as for their right to glorify those heroes who liberated Ukraine from fascism, rather than those who helped them kill innocent people. Let me ask those who defend freedom of religion at home, why wouldn’t you show a “red card” to those in Ukraine who are persecuting canonical Orthodoxy, which is a thousand-year-old faith, seizing churches, and blatantly harassing believers? After all, when defending the Zelensky regime, you are defending precisely what you would never tolerate in your own countries. So why do you want us to tolerate on our borders something that is geared against people who speak the same language and profess the same faith as we do? Where do these criminal “double standards” come from?
Mr. President,
We have reiterated on numerous occasions that we are not seeking to destroy Ukraine, its culture, or its identity. We would like Ukrainian and Russian cultures coexist in this country, as it used to be for decades without any problems or conflicts. We are not fighting Ukrainians, they are our brotherly people, we are fighting the criminal Kiev regime, and Ukrainians are becoming increasingly aware of that. We would like to share borders with Ukraine, not with “Anti-Russia,” just as – I dare say – the US would never wish to border an “Anti-US.” What’s wrong about that? Well, let's make Ukraine sane again, and let’s do that together. After all it is precisely what we are striving for.
There is one more point that needs to be taken into account for the Ukrainian settlement to succeed. I am referring to those “cards held close to the chest” that our Western partners are not even trying to hide. We all understand that the Ukrainian crisis is merely a derivative of a much broader crisis engendered by years-long efforts by Western countries who disregarded Russia's security interests. Something must be done about this as well. We do hope that sane forces in Europe and America will come up with a more positive plan than another package of sanctions against Russia, which is something that we have long adapted to. Otherwise, the situation in Europe and the world as a whole will remain unstable, and we will never be able to break this vicious circle of escalation and threats. So far, what we’ve heard are just fear-mongering stories about Russia allegedly getting ready to attack NATO countries – that’s utter nonsense beyond imagination.
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, now it’s a good time for us to rectify many mistakes and move on to cooperation instead of trying to restrain each other. The choice is yours. Just remember that we will not back down on our national interests, nor on our right to live in peace and not be threatened by our closest neighbors.
Thank you.
