Statement by Chargé d'Affaires of the Russian Federation Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC briefing on the issue of weapon deliveries to Ukraine
Mme.President,
We thank today’s briefers, especially Mr.Danny Haiphong for his courageous civic stand, which is shared by many American and European people, whose voices, sadly enough, do not make it to Western printed media.
For three months now, we have been watching the agony of the Kiev regime in the context of Ukraine's so-called strategic counter-offensive, which, according to Western propagandists, was supposed to bring a military victory. The entire NATO military machinery was thrown in for this purpose, spending billions of Western taxpayers’ money.
But as the famous saying goes, it was just “a mountain in labor”. The only result of the Ukrainian counter-offensive that even the West had to recognize, was tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were killed and hundreds of items of costly Western equipment that were destroyed. The world saw clearly that this equipment was not “unique and inviolable” for Russian weapons. What’s more, in many cases it cannot compete even with Soviet equipment manufactured 50 years ago.
The situation with training of troops and planning of operations by Ukrainian armed forces is also deplorable, which is confirmed by the testimonies of captured Ukrainian servicemen who were trained after Western standards.
The complete collapse of the Ukrainian system of military administration, widespread corruption and disorganization repel even Western mercenaries, who begin to realize that the only role assigned to them is not the fight for Ukraine’s freedom, but being ordinary "cannon fodder". Against this background, Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence has begun recruiting anti-social elements around the world (including, as we have learned, Latin American countries), who are ready to fight for lesser rewards.
Due to the all-out corruptness of the Ukrainian army, Western weapons are spreading uncontrollably around the world. Through black markets, they end up in conflict zones, in the Balkans, Africa, and Latin America, directly undermining regional security. All responsibility for this lies with Western suppliers, who ignore all their obligations to trace the end-user of the supplied systems.
None of this seems to be a concern for Western political establishment. Last week, US President Joe Biden requested the Congress to allocate another sum exceeding $24 billion dollars to Ukraine on top of the $113 billion in official aid already spent. That's about 900 dollars per each American family.
According to polls in American mass media, ordinary US citizens cannot but wonder if there are no acute socio-economic problems in the United States itself that would be worth spending this colossal money on? Why should the American people pay out of their own pockets for the military adventures of the Democratic Party? Public opinion in Germany and France is also against the supply of TAURUS and SCALP cruise missiles to Ukrainian nationalists. But Western authorities, despite their claims to be "democratic," are completely deaf to the appeals of their people. They demand that the Kiev regime continue its suicidal "offensive" in order to justify the allocation of more money and delivery of more weapons with at least some results.
So who is the main beneficiary? Not the ordinary Americans or Europeans, that is for sure. By emptying the arsenals of its satellites and promising subsidized supplies of Western-made equipment in return, the US authorities are "vacating" the market for the products of the US military-industry to sell them to partners – all according to a well-established pattern that dates back to the post-World War II period. Europe is once again paying for these new weapons not only in money, but also in sovereignty. European Union’s defense policy, which took years and lots of efforts to build has become completely subordinate to Washington's interests, just as it did during the Cold War.
As for ordinary Ukrainians, neither Kiev nor Western capitals care about their fate. President of Poland A.Duda commented on this with chilling cynicism the other day: "Now Russian imperialism can be stopped cheaply, because American soldiers do not die". That is, Warsaw, London, Paris and Berlin value the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, who are thrown into the so-called "meat storms" less than the lives of Americans, and even less than expensive NATO military equipment. He could not possibly have put it nastier.
There is no doubt that in its "proxy war" with Russia to the last Ukrainian, the West is purposefully turning Ukraine into an uninhabitable testing site, contaminated with radioactive elements and unexploded ordinance. The decisions by London and Washington to supply depleted uranium shells and cluster munitions have shocked not only the international community but even their NATO allies. Polish media are already trumpeting about an increased level of radiation in the Western regions of Ukraine and Eastern provinces of Poland after the destruction of depleted uranium shells in May at a warehouse in Khmelnitsky. But the British and Americans do not care about continental Europe, just as they did not care about the consequences of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia with depleted uranium shells.
Cluster munitions, if used in violation of IHL in civilian quarters, which is exactly what the Kiev regime is doing, pose a serious long-term threat to civilians. That is why Laos and Cambodia urged the Ukrainians to not use them, for those countries had experienced first-hand the dire consequences of such munitions, which were used as part of American aggression back in the day. For decades, Washington has been moralizing and branding all those who have used this type of ammunition as "war criminals". It turns out that in your own logic, Zelensky and his associates are war criminals, and you are his direct accomplices, who share full responsibility for already committed and future atrocities.
Assurances of the United States authorities that the cluster weapons they supply to Ukraine will allegedly not be used in violation of the IHL are a blatant lie. The Kiev regime carries out daily strikes with cluster munitions against the northern districts of Donetsk, where no military targets are located. Their only task is to terrorize the civilian population, which is also expressly prohibited by IHL but is fully in line with the tactics of the Kiev regime, which has long ago turned to expressly terrorist methods. At the same time, cluster munitions do not offer any special advantages on the battlefield, and Washington understands this perfectly well.
Unlike that of the United States, Russia’s position on the use of cluster munitions is consistent and prescribes full compliance with IHL norms and requirements.
Colleagues,
In this very chamber, our former American partners have denied with “foam at the mouth" the fact that biological weapons are being developed in biolabs across Ukraine and blocked a Russian-initiated investigation into this matter within the framework of the BTWC. What will you say now that these facts have been confirmed by the Democrat presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.? We have no doubt that the people of Ukraine in the future will want to deal with the fact that the United States has actually used them as lab rats for military-biological experiments.
Colleagues, all those responsible for this and other numerous crimes against civilians that the Kiev regime, with the support of its Western patrons, has been committing since 2014 will be identified and will receive the punishment they deserve. This is already well underway. Let me cite just a few recent examples.
Anatoliy Kilyushyk, the commander of a branch of the neo-Nazi Azov battalion, was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison. Azov soldiers P.Artemenko and A.Rokanyuk, who shelled residential houses in the DPR during their retreat last spring, were sentenced to 24 years in prison. Vitaliy Minenko, who confessed to killing a civilian in Mariupol, was sentenced to 21 years in prison, while Ukrainian military officer V.Shitrya, who killed four civilians in Mariupol, was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ukrainian marines V.Pafitsevich and Y.Vakhnenko have also been sentenced to 22 years in prison for the murder of a Mariupol civilian.
Colleagues,
Since our last meeting, the number of incidents of Ukrainian air defence missiles hitting civil facilities has increased. We all remember how they hit the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa, and the other day Ukrainian missile operators burned down a supermarket there. Ukrainian social networks are already openly saying that fellow citizens should beware of domestic air defense systems that are deployed in residential neighborhoods in violation of IHL. Ukrainians understand perfectly well that Russian strikes with precision weapons against objects related to Ukraine's military potential do not in themselves pose a threat to the civilian population.
Meanwhile, the Russian military have made significant advances in the Kharkov region and are preparing to liberate Kupyansk. While keeping the population silent about this disadvantageous dynamic, the Kiev regime has nevertheless announced forced evacuation of 37 settlements, including Kupyansk itself. This is not surprising: a significant part of the local population feels sympathy for Russia and would prefer to wait for the arrival of Russian troops. At the same time, Zelensky's regime does not hesitate to take children away from their parents, who hide them from Ukrainian patrols in basements. In Kupyansk alone, more than 500 children are exposed to such threat. We draw the attention of the United Nations and our colleagues on the Security Council to these numerous flagrant cases of violations of IHL by Ukraine. We put all cases on record and summarize so later we can search for those responsible.
Colleagues,
The people of Ukraine begin to realize more and more clearly that the Kiev regime is pushing them down a suicidal path to serve the interests of Western countries. This feeling is growing stronger at all levels. I give you a telling example. According to Ukrainian media, about 60% of diplomats have not returned from Ukrainian embassies abroad since the beginning of 2022. As reported by Ukrainian journalists, about 20 employees were supposed to return from the United States last year, but only one did.
The Ukrainian leadership cannot but realize the its aggressive Russophobic policy has failed. But V.Zelensky, who has driven his country into an impasse, has no other choice but to keep hopping from one foreign summit to another begging for help. Western arms deliveries do not bring peace any closer, as Western delegations claim; they are the only thing keeping Zelensky's regime "afloat" for now. But no matter how hard they try, sooner or later the Ukrainian people, who have paid too high a price for the promotion of Western geopolitical interests, will start asking the right questions and will want to hold the true architects of the current crisis accountable. Many of them, as we are all well aware, are represented in this room and today will again repeat their unconvincing mantra about the need to continue military assistance to Ukraine as a "victim of aggression". The number of those who still believe in this is getting smaller and smaller, as we can see from the recent international contacts. An increasing number of our international partners realize the true causes of the Ukrainian crisis and see that the supply of Western weapons to the Kiev regime is hindering the search for ways out and multiplying the suffering of ordinary Ukrainians.
This trend emerged i.a. in the wake of our efforts to raise this issue in the Security Council. That is why we will continue this work, no matter whether the Western accomplices of the Kiev regime like it or not.
Thank you.
