Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine
Main statement:
Madam President,
Before I begin my statement, I would like to express our principled disagreement with the way the presidency has proceeded inviting delegations under rule 37. In violation of established practice, the Danish presidency single-handedly took the decision to give the floor to four EU and NATO States, as well as to a representative of the EU itself. We’ve already stated on numerous occasions that inviting such a large number of participants, especially those guided by bloc discipline, brings no added value to our discussions. But your actions, contrary to the working methods you yourselves distributed to us, will drag on our discussion, turning it basically into a debate, which UNSC members didn’t consent to. We regard this not only as a dirty trick by the presidency, but also as an attempt to exert pressure on Council members. There is no rationale for turning a Security Council meeting into a NATO “get-together”, nor can there be any. It is a shame that Copenhagen, as its presidency is drawing to the close, decided to openly demonstrate its contempt for the practices and procedures of the Council, putting their national position and NATO's interests above UNSC President’s duties – namely, the UNSC is supposed to safeguard the rules of procedure and pursue a balanced and impartial line.
Madam President,
We all saw how the European sponsors of the Kiev regime dithered over whether to request another meeting on Ukraine this month. On the one hand, they really wanted to “tick the box” in March, but on the other hand, it was important for them not to “reveal their cards” so that nobody would have the impression that the EU and the UK are trying to thwart the US-Russian efforts to end the Ukrainian crisis. Finally, at the eleventh hour, when the month of March was almost over, London and Brussels finally did decide to make such a move, using as a pretext the letters that the Ukrainian Permanent Mission has regularly sent to the UN Security Council to level groundless accusations of Russia’s strikes allegedly being carried out against civilian objects in Ukraine.
As we have reiterated on numerous occasions, the Russian Aerospace Forces target only those objects that have to do with the Kiev regime's military capabilities. Therefore, civilians in Ukraine usually suffer either from the debris of downed missiles and drones (since Ukraine's air defenses are deployed in residential areas of Ukrainian cities in violation of IHL norms), or from anti-aircraft missiles falling on them, which they then try to portray as the consequences of Russian strikes. But the Kiev regime is not very convincing, because the Ukrainians themselves – despite a strict ban of the punitive bodies of the Zelensky regime – are reporting and posting information about what is going on, thereby refuting all propagandistic fabrications of their authorities.
It is such posts that helped to debunk the fabrication regarding the March 24 school bombing in Sumy that had been portrayed as a deliberate strike by the Russian Armed Forces against civilian infrastructure. The images widely shared on social networks show that after a small outbreak of fire in the center of a residential area (which looked like the result of downing a drone), there was suddenly a large-scale detonation of ammunition stored in one of the buildings nearby. The involvement of the Kiev regime (which stores ammunition in residential neighborhoods) in this incident was so blatantly obvious that even the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andrey Yermak, had to correct his social media post about the alleged Russian strike causing the explosion.
But the Ukrainian mission to the UN, which included this episode in its letter of March 24 calling it a “Russian missile strike”, did not have time to correct anything, thus throwing its European curators under the bus, as today they also actively referred to this incident. Here is a telling example of how the Security Council is being manipulated and its members are being fed false information. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of such examples.
Nevertheless, those in Europe who cherish Ukraine won’t notice point-blank the crimes of the Kiev regime committed against civilians in Russia. And the European Commissioner, Ms. Kallas, who briefed us recently, is known to have shamelessly asserted that there are no such casualties whatsoever.
Well, let’s leave this on her conscience (although, apparently, she does not have one). What I’d like to do now is citing some statistics covering only the latest period. In just one week – from March 17 to March 23 – there were 150 civilian casualties, primarily in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (the LPR and the DPR), as well as in Belgorod, Kursk and Kherson regions. Sixteen people died, another 134 were injured, including four minors.
And two days ago, on March 24, the Lugansk People's Republic of the Russian Federation saw three Russian media workers killed as a result of targeted shelling of a civilian vehicle by the Ukrainian armed forces – Alexander Fedorchak, a war correspondent for Russia’s Izvestia news agency, as well as a cameraman Andrey Panov and driver Alexander Sirkeli who worked for the Zvezda TV channel. Another two correspondents were badly wounded. Today we also learned that in the Belgorod Region, in the area where Ukrainian sabotage groups are active, “Channel One” correspondent Anna Prokofieva died, and her cameraman Dmitry Volkov was seriously injured. Where is the condemnation of all these crimes on the part of the Western societies and on the part of the UN? Or do you think that the killings of journalists, if they are Russian, do not merit a response?
However, we have already got used to the fact that the deaths of Russian people are not considered as a crime in Europe, which is gripped by primeval Russophobia. We all remember that since the 2014 anti-constitutional coup in Kiev, when nationalists and neo-Nazis came to power, Europe and the West as a whole have remained silent as Russians were burned alive in the Trade Union house in Odessa, and they did remain silent throughout the eight years that the Kiev regime waged war against the peaceful Russian-speaking people of Donbass. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, your unscrupulousness and selective blindness come as no surprise to us. That is why we took the situation into our own hands and started our special military operation over three years ago in order to end this war on fellow-Russians waged by the Kiev regime.
Madam President,
Today, with the new Republican administration in the White House, led by President Donald Trump, we do have hope that the Ukrainian crisis will finally be over and a sustainable and lasting peace will reign there. What was needed here was only common sense and political will. UNSC Resolution 2774 came as a kind of embodiment of this change of course – it was adopted on February 24 with much gnashing of teeth on the part of our European colleagues.
Of course, it is just the beginning. For now, Russia and the United States are just looking for understandings which will benefit the entire world. Our leaders, ministers and expert teams have resumed talks and have already achieved some remarkable results. Thus, yesterday, following the expert talks held in Riyadh, Russia and the US agreed on starting to implement the Black Sea Initiative. The initiative implies ensuring the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, non-use of force and non-use of commercial vessels for military purposes – as we all remember, it was precisely owing to such actions by the Kiev regime that the previous similar attempt failed. In order to avoid new incidents of this kind, we intend to introduce proper control measures – namely, inspection of such vessels.
Moreover, the US pledged to assist in restoring access of Russian produce and fertilizers to the world market, as well as in lowering the cost of insurance for such maritime trade, and in expanding access to ports and payment systems to carry out such transactions.
It is important to understand that, under the agreement, the “initiative” is to be resumed only after a number of measures are adopted – namely, lifting sanctions restrictions on Russian Agricultural Bank and other Russian financial institutions involved in international trade in food and fertilizers, including connecting these institutions to the SWIFT system. A number of other restrictions on Russia are envisaged to be lifted as well.
Furthermore, Russia and the US arranged to develop measures to implement the agreement reached by the Presidents of the two countries with regard to the prohibition of strikes on energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine for a period of 30 days, starting on March 18, 2025, with the possibility of the extension of this period and withdrawal from the agreement in case of non-compliance with the terms by one of the parties.
As you know, Russia has been upholding this agreement for over a week now, which is not the case with the Zelensky regime that seemed to only pay lip service to it. However, just three hours after the decision was announced, the Kiev regime launched three drones at an energy facility located near the village of Kavkazskaya in the Krasnodar region, which pumps crude oil into the pipeline system of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. And in the early hours of March 21, there was an explosion at the Sudza gas metering station in Kursk Oblast, through which gas was pumped to Europe (at the time, the station was under control of the Ukrainian forces).
On March 23, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a massive artillery strike on an electric substation in the Zaporozhye Region, leaving 11,000 people without electricity. In the early hours of March 24, the Kiev regime attacked the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station (also belonging to the Caspian Consortium). On the same day, in the afternoon, the Kuban branch of PJSC “Rosseti” was hit, which caused the shutdown of the power supply line connecting the Rostov NPP with the city of Tikhoretsk; Lugansk saw an attack on the Svatovo gas distribution station; and in Crimea, there was intercepted a drone that was supposed to target the Glebovskoye underground gas storage facility. By the way, the Kiev regime tried to attack this very facility again this morning. Above that, the Ukrainian forces used drones today to attack also other energy facilities in the Bryansk and Kursk regions.
That is to say, having agreed to the “energy ceasefire” in word, Kiev continues to plan and carry out strikes against Russia's energy infrastructure, thus trying to hoodwink both us and the United States. It is plain that through such actions it seeks to thwart any peace agreements, which clearly demonstrates that Kiev is impossible to negotiate with. Russia reserves the right to respond should the Kiev regime proceed with its destructive course.
Madam President,
Derailing the settlement process launched by Russia and the United States and dragging its European allies into a confrontation with Russia are the last things for the Kiev ringleader to bet on so as to keep himself and his through and through corrupt posse in power. As you know, Zelensky's Kursk misadventure ended ignominiously in March – we have liberated more than 90% of Kursk Oblast, which was invaded by the Ukrainian Nazis last August.
The cost, as many warned, was catastrophic for Ukraine – over 70,000 people died and hundreds, if not thousands, of units of Western-supplied heavy weaponry were lost. As a result, the combat capability of the Ukrainian army has been undermined, and the country is losing more and more territory in the east, where the front has basically collapsed since all the reserves are being sent to Kursk. Despite all utterly barbaric and unconstitutional methods that Ukraine is using, forced mobilization has stalled there; and Ukrainian men snatched on the streets and forcibly thrown to the frontline tend to refuse to fight and surrender at the earliest opportunity.
The Kiev princeling stands in for elections and retribution for all the crimes committed against his country and his people. Besides, he will have to account to the West for stealing billions of dollars allocated for supporting Ukraine. This is Zelensky's worst nightmare, and he will go to any lengths to make sure that it won’t come true. He is not troubled by new victims among Ukrainians nor by the danger of provoking a conflict between nuclear powers. That is why, he is desperately maneuvering, lying, and contradicting himself, while clutching at straws to extend the agony of his regime, which has turned Ukraine into a concentration camp and into a private military company fighting for illusory Western geopolitical interests.
But his efforts are doomed, and the Ukrainian crisis will have its lasting solution. Today, owing to the efforts of the President of Russia and the President of the US, there is a real chance that this solution will be diplomatic in nature, and that dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives of ordinary Ukrainians will be saved. There remains, of course, a military scenario, and we are ready to implement it as well. But we prefer peace and diplomacy, as we have consistently stated over these three years in every single statement we’ve delivered in this chamber.
And what do you prefer? Are you going to continue feeding “PMC Ukraine” with weapons and try to foil the settlement of the conflict? Or will you join the ranks of Russia and the United States in search of a long-term solution that would address the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis and strengthen security in Europe and all over the world?
The choice is yours. Bear this in mind when warmongering forces, which are on rampage in certain European countries, are trying to disrupt the efforts of Moscow and Washington while egging on the expired Ukrainian president to engage in new deadly misadventures.
Thank you.
The right of reply:
Madam President,
Since you allowed yourself to respond to what I said, I will allow myself to respond to your comment.
Citing bad examples is a very bad practice. It only serves to further undermine your efforts as President of the Security Council. Moreover, one of the events that you mentioned, namely that of February, was at the ministerial level. You are well aware of that. We are, after all, adults in this Chamber. Let’s not look for childish justifications for the mistakes you’ve made, let’s simply recognize them.
