Statement by Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Anna Evstigneeva at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine
Mr. President,
The Kiev regime continues its terrorist attacks against peaceful Russians. In the early hours of July 25, Ukrainian UAVs struck a tourist camp in the Zaporozhye Region, killing 12 people, including five children, another 19 were injured. On the same day, six people were killed and 26 were wounded as a result of a missile strike on a facility in the city of Kirov. On July 20, a passenger bus was attacked on the Belgorod-Shebekino highway. As a result of the drone strike, four women and a 16-year-old teenager were killed, 27 people were injured. Between July 13 and 19, 433 Russian civilians were affected by shelling by Ukrainian Nazis: 364 people were injured, including 12 children, and 69 people were killed, including two children. In total, the Ukrainian troops fired 7,168 rounds of munitions at civilian targets on Russian territory.
Ukrainian militants continue their terror campaign against the personnel of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). On 15 July, the plant's chief engineer, Alexander Yakovlev, and his driver were killed in Ukraine’s targeted UAV strike on a service vehicle. The murder of specialists responsible for nuclear and radiation safety and security demonstrates Kiev's intention to disrupt the management of the ZNPP and create a threat of a large-scale man-made disaster.
As we noted at the previous UNSC meeting, the Kiev regime's terror is becoming increasingly international in scope. Neither European territory nor foreign operators are immune to it any longer. From 17 to 20 July, several tankers were deliberately attacked near the marine terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium off the coast of Novorossiysk, including vessels chartered by Tengizchevroil and KazMunayGas in the interest of Kazakhstan's oil industry. This was already the fifth attack against civilian facilities of the consortium, which brings together major energy companies from Russia, Kazakhstan, the United States, and Western European countries.
Colleagues, no sane person can justify deliberate strikes against sleeping tourists or buses carrying civilians, even though the representative of the UK tried to do this. But we will take the liberty to suggest the following. Zelensky is mistakenly counting on using such attacks to turn around the highly unfavorable situation he faces on the battlefield, intimidate Russia's civilian population, and create a winning tale for the Ukrainian and Western media in order to continue receiving weapons and money from sponsors.
The complicity and involvement of Western countries in these terrorist attacks is beyond doubt. Let us look at the outcome of the fifteenth meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing”, held in Paris on 13 July under the co-chairmanship of France and the United Kingdom. Participants in this get-together declared their intention to continue arms supplies to Kiev, increase pressure on Russia and provide support to Ukraine. At the same time, they demanded an immediate ceasefire on their terms, the launch of negotiations with Russia from a position of strength and with the mandatory participation of Europeans, the continued blocking of Russian assets and the further tightening of sanctions. They also reaffirmed their intention, following a ceasefire, to provide the Kiev regime with security guarantees, which the participants in the meeting attempted to portray as exclusively “defensive” in nature. However, the content of the final document exposes this verbal camouflage. It explicitly states that “multinational forces” would be required to restore the capabilities of the Ukrainian army and provide Kiev with support “on land, in the air and at sea”. In other words, behind the lofty slogans about peace lies a straightforward plan: to use the respite to rearm Kiev and prepare for a new round of confrontation with Russia.
We have seen this film before. It will not happen again. I address the European participants in the “coalition of the willing”. The deployment of military contingents of your countries on Ukrainian territory would constitute foreign intervention, creating a direct threat to Russia's security. We will regard your units as legitimate military targets.
However, European capitals have long since moved beyond preparing foreign contingents. At the same get-together we mentioned above, they announced the creation of an “anti-ballistic” coalition of nine countries. Under the guise of assurances that the initiative is “exclusively defensive” in nature, the Europeans intend to pool their defense industries, expand weapons production in Ukraine and use its territory as a testing ground. It is telling that immediately after the meeting, President Macron announced that Ukraine will be granted licenses for the production of SCALP cruise missiles, Aster-30 surface-to-air missiles for the SAMP/T air defense system, and AASM Hammer guided aerial bombs. This clearly demonstrates the hypocrisy of the “coalition” members: behind the talk of defense lies a policy of expanding Kiev's long-range arsenal and further escalating the conflict with Russia. Do they realize where all this may bring their own countries? That’s a big question.
However, Mr. President, they know perfectly well what this means for Ukrainians. After all, the cynicism of Kiev's Western patrons is off the chart. Zelensky will provide the infrastructure for all these military plans and, most importantly, he will sacrifice the Ukrainian people for this to happen.
Ordinary Ukrainians are nothing but expendable material for the continuation of war against Russia to the last Ukrainian. The European Union has approved a multi-billion-euro loan for Kiev, but on the condition that Ukraine addresses the shortage of military personnel, which can only be achieved through more stringent mobilization and lowering the conscription age. At the same time, Ukrainians themselves do not want to die for the interests of the corrupt Kiev regime. There is a genuine manhunt for men of military age being waged in Ukraine. People are being rounded up in the streets and dragged out of vehicles; there are illegal raids on private homes and apartments, after which people are forcibly sent to the frontline. Those who resist are being brutally beaten, sometimes to death. This conscription frenzy has driven Ukrainian society mad, which is clearly evidenced by recent events in Lvov. When an officer from the territorial recruitment centers shoved a man into a vehicle, hundreds of residents surrounded the recruiters, smashed their vehicle and tore the clothes off one of the officers. People are in despair, and they are indeed prepared to tear the “manhunters” apart with their bare hands. Even a representative of the Ukrainian authorities, Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets, could not hold back and claimed: “Society is morphing into a sort of ‘lynch mob’ and has practically reached boiling point.”
Do Western countries care about human rights in Ukraine? Certainly not. They have already paid billions of dollars for the lives of these slaves and regard this as a fairly good investment. The European members of the Security Council will once again choose to remain silent about what is happening. They will also turn a deaf ear to the statements made by the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Mr. Drapatyi, who said that “the Russian nation has no right to exist”. Are we still the only ones who see this blatant neo-Nazism for what it is? Tellingly, it is precisely people with such views whom the West wants to prevail. Over and over again, they repeat claims about some kind of “turning point” on the battlefield, while refusing to acknowledge the simple logic: if that is indeed the case, why has Zelensky decided to appoint a new defense minister and commander-in-chief? Is this deliberate disinformation or self-deception? Either way, the clash between their illusions and reality is inevitable.
And the reality is that the Russian army is incrementally expanding its zone of control, disrupting the transfer of reserves, undermining supplies to the Ukrainian army and systematically putting out of action facilities supporting the Ukrainian war machine. The attempt, for example, to dispute the capture of Konstantinovka by the Russian Armed Forces ended with the captivity of Ukrainian propagandists who were sent there carrying a Ukrainian flag and portraits of Zelensky and Syrsky. The illusion never came to pass, but at least two Ukrainians were left alive.
In the early hours of July 19, the Russian Armed Forces carried out a massive strike using precision weapons and attack UAVs targeting Ukrainian defense-industry enterprises and military logistics facilities in Kiev and the Kiev and Odessa Regions. Among targets hit in Kiev were the Radionix, Spetsoboronmash, Meridian and Oakline enterprises. These plants are involved in the production of components for the Flamingo, FP-7, FP-9 and Neptune-MD missiles, maintenance of aviation systems, as well as the manufacture and storage of UAVs. Strikes were also carried out against a Nova Poshta sorting terminal and a logistics center in Tarasovka, which were used for the delivery and distribution of dual-use products and UAV components. At the Yuzhny Port, fuel storage tanks intended to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces were destroyed.
On 24 July, a coordinated strike was carried out against a facility in the suburbs of Kiev where a demonstration of Ukrainian- and foreign-made UAVs was taking place, with the same types of UAVs being used to hit civilian facilities on Russian territory.
We would like to emphasize once again that the Russian Armed Forces strike exclusively at specific facilities involved in supporting the Ukrainian army. The mere formal classification of a target as civilian does not alter the nature of its actual use. Kiev, for its part, deliberately locates military production facilities, equipment and warehouses in densely populated urban areas, uses civilian enterprises and transport for military purposes, and then capitalizes on the consequences thereof by blaming Russia for what were actually the results of Kiev’s own practice of militarizing civilian infrastructure and violating international humanitarian law. This is evidenced by numerous videos showing secondary detonations at such facilities, as was the case in Vishnevoe on the outskirts of Kiev, and on vessels in the Black Sea.
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that Russia does not intend to change its plans and is determined to continue responding to the hostilities unleashed by the Kiev regime, with Western support, against the south-eastern regions of Ukraine and against Russia. We will not agree to any pseudo-agreements that fail to take Russia's national interests into account. And so far, there are no viable proposals on the table. Therefore, we will continue to pursue the stated goals and objectives of the Special Military Operation.
Thank you.
