YouSaid · the spoken record

Nebenzia

lines on the record: 5,044
first: 2017-08-02
most recent: 2023-12-30
sittings or episodes: 461
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Permission to extract bio- or anatomical materials from the body of a deceased person can be obtained from the person in charge who is obliged to bury the deceased person — for example, from the head doctor of a hospital or the head of a military unit. The right to perform transplants has been granted to not only public but also private clinics. Thanks to another law, organ transplant operations are exempt from value added tax. That policy, in a most favourable environment, is actively being used by criminals. Organs are being traded on the dark web — and not only there. For example, in June, a man — an employee of a certain charitable organization — was detained on the Ukraine-Slovakia border for engaging in in the trafficking of Ukrainian children abroad, including for organ transplants.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“Such unpleasant facts are becoming increasingly difficult to conceal. Ukrainians are also becoming victims of organ trafficking. There is growing evidence of a flourishing black market for organs for transplant in the country. To that end, the country passed the necessary legislation. For example, a law was recently created to regulate the transplanting of human anatomical materials, according to which it is no longer required to notarize the written consent of a living donor or his or her relatives for transplantation — the authentication of signatures is not required. Essentially, it has been authorized to extract organs from children as well. The procedure for the removal of organs from deceased persons who, while still alive, did not give their consent to donate their organs after death has been simplified.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“According to information from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, since February of last year, 2,852,000 people have left the territory of Ukraine for Russia. If we add to them the 3 million residents of Donbas who left for Russia after the civil war unleashed by the Kyiv regime in 2014, our country can rightfully be considered one of the main host States for Ukrainians in distress. We see a completely different attitude towards Ukrainian refugees in Europe. Despite the European Union’s thundering statements about the provision of assistance, the rights of Ukrainian refugees are not guaranteed or protected. The most vulnerable categories of citizens — women and children — are particularly at risk, namely, of separation from their families, involvement in criminal activities and exploitation.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“At the same time, the current authorities in Kyiv are basing their policies on the glorification of Nazi ideology and elevating Hitler’s henchmen to the rank of heroes. In addition to that, there is rampant corruption throughout Ukraine’s echelons of power, which is only gaining momentum in view of the impressive amounts of financial and other material aid coming from the West. Even Kyiv’s most ardent allies recognize the alarming scale of such corruption. One of the ugliest ways it manifests is in the Kyiv regime’s attitude towards its own citizens, both in the form of accepting bribes for excuses from military service — from which the children of Ukraine’s elite are of course already safe — and in the way it uses Ukrainian refugees as pawns. In fact, only in Russia do those refugees feel protected by the law.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“[The lawmakers who oppose it are] saying no to the people they are representing”. Even the newspaper itself shares that view and believes that the effort to arm Ukraine, combined with Kyiv’s seemingly insatiable need for weapons and ammunition, has prompted a defence-production bonanza in the United States. This situation represents the ugly truth of the American position in support of Ukraine: in addition to enabling the pursuit of dubious geopolitical goals, it is also an opportunity to make money — good money — off the pain and suffering of others. Against that backdrop, Ukraine itself continues to slip into the abyss of totalitarian dictatorship, in which any alternative or inconvenience to the ruling regime’s point of view is denied.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“Can we really expect our greedy American colleagues to give up that extremely profitable business project in the name of peace? There are big doubts about that, as the thirst for profit runs through the veins of all segments of the American political and business elite. According to an article by The New York Times, a new factory is being built in the town of Mesquite, Texas, United States, to produce artillery shells for the Ukrainian army. It is worth noting that when voices of common sense in the area began to speak up to call for an end to the insane pumping of weapons to the Kyiv regime, they immediately came under harsh criticism from a number of local lawmakers. Do Council members know why? One of the opinions cited in the article was that: “This will create manufacturing jobs in the United States.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“Thanks to his contracts with the Pentagon and his personal ties with the Ukrainian military command, Mr. Morales’ company has become a crucial link in the supply of arms and ammunition to Ukraine for the latter’s Soviet-era systems. As a result, Mr. Morales has enriched himself by several hundreds of millions of dollars. That means that a businessman is receiving contracts and backing from the United States Government to supply arms to another State. One can only imagine the level of corruption that exists not only in full view of the United States authorities, but also with their direct support. According to information from journalists, the United States began to engage in such shadow cooperation with Ukraine at least a year before the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“Washington therefore has no desire to end this war — a war that is, above all, enriching the United States significantly. We have already spoken at previous meetings about the fantastic profits that Western corporations are making and the fact that a significant portion of the funds allocated to Ukraine do not leave the territory of the United States or that of other Western sponsors of the Kyiv regime. There has recently been much evidence of unprecedented corruption in that context. For example, with regard to the United States’ active use of grey schemes to supply arms to Ukraine, there is one more story worth mentioning. Recently, the American media published information about the role played in that process by American arms dealer Marc Morales, who was indicted on money laundering charges in the United States back in 2009.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“They clearly did not have a shred of decency when they razed to the ground peaceful cities in Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and, in the past, Indochina and other regions, so why would they now, when they are waging a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, to the last Ukrainian? The fact that the United States is the real puppeteer behind the Kyiv regime was clearly demonstrated yesterday by Mark A. Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Army, who invited CBS reporters to the situation room, where the situation on the battlefield is monitored in real time by satellites. In doing so, the general did not hide the fact that the Americans are passing to Kyiv all that intelligence, including locations of objects deep behind Russian lines.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“The organization called the United States’ decision to supply cluster bombs to Ukraine as unconscionable. In response, according to reports, the Biden Administration is preparing a decision to supply the Kyiv regime with long-range missiles with cluster munitions. In this case, according to the United States Congressional Research Service, up to one third of the new munitions may fail to explode and remain in the ground as a threat to civilians for decades. And that is depite the fact that, according to the unanimous opinion of military experts, cluster munitions will not give Ukraine an advantage on the battlefield, as they have far less penetration power than conventional weapons. What are the principles guiding Washington and London in authorizing such obvious crimes? Do our colleagues have any shred of decency left?”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“It is being presented to the public in such a way as to say that cluster munitions produced in the United States pose no threat to civilians and are high-tech, while the rest are all no good and dangerous because of their high percentages of unexploded submunitions. That of course is contrary to elementary facts. For example, in its World Report 2023, Human Rights Watch representatives say that civilians accounted for 95 per cent of the victims of cluster munitions last year, primarily in Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Syria and Ukraine, with 71 per cent of all victims being children. Among them are the residents of Izyum who died in 2022 as a result of shelling by Ukrainian forces, which we have spoken about in detail at previous meetings.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“We are now seeing active hypocrisy at work in a campaign in the West claiming that depleted uranium shells are not in the least harmful. They will soon be proving that they are actually good for our health. In that regard, I would like to recall the trial that took place in Italy after more than 7,000 soldiers — 400 of whom died — were poisoned by NATO forces in Yugoslavia due to the use of such munitions. Of course, no one in the West remembers that Serbs, obviously, suffered too. Another issue deserving special attention is that of the cluster munitions that the United States is supplying to Ukraine in large quantities, partly because there is very little conventional ammunition left in NATO’s stores.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“The Western countries’ main priority is therefore not to achieve a military defeat of Russia, which is by definition impossible, but to do as much damage to it as possible along with inflicting the maximum amount of pollution and damage on the territories that have joined our country. Just as the Western colonizers once used scorched-earth tactics in Africa and Asia and sowed vast areas of Indochina, Syria and Afghanistan with mines and unexploded ordnance, so now are they acting in southern and eastern Ukraine. It is enough here to remind the Council that this year the United Kingdom has supplied the Armed Forces of Ukraine with depleted uranium shells. The United States, which appears to be preparing a base for sending its Abrams tanks to the Ukrainians, may also be supplying Kyiv with similarly dangerous weapons in the near future.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“Incidentally, we would like to suggest to our British colleagues that they should update the information on their Ministry of Defence website, which still states that not a single Challenger has been destroyed on the battlefield, whereas in fact at least two have already been destroyed in Ukraine, while the other 12 may still be trundling around somewhere but will receive the same fate, just like the American Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets. Many leading experts are already warning loudly that pumping the Kyiv regime full of new weapons makes no sense at all, given the insoluble logistical and maintenance problems. And the Western militaries must surely realize that too.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“That is how, in the face of imminent military and political bankruptcy, the Kyiv regime is beginning to completely lose its self-control. The nervousness on the part of the Kyiv clique is understandable. Despite the fact that support for Ukraine by its Western sponsors has reached an unprecedented level, the country has been unable to back it up with action. We have already spoken about the so-called counter-offensive, which is a blatant fiasco. The equipment supplied to the Kyiv regime, including the lauded American Bradley armoured personnel carriers and German Leopard and British Challenger tanks, are going up in smoke.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“I would say that it is a public relations or lobbying office to make money to support the comfortable retirement of the people who occupy various leadership positions. The emotions that the United Nations evokes will always be negative, just like any other international institution — the International Atomic Energy Agency, some international red cross or other, Amnesty International — they are all fictitious organizations that clog our consciousness with absolutely rubbish assessments. If they did not exist, we would probably have resolved many issues better and quicker.” In the Ukrainians’ understanding, therefore, Mrs. Nakamitsu and her Secretary-General did not report to the Security Council today, but rather “clogged our consciousness with absolutely rubbish assessments”.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“He said that Germany would supply them with the missiles anyway and that it was just a matter of time, but that he did not understand why time was being wasted. We are all generally accustomed to Ukraine’s continued contemptuous treatment of Germany, ever since Chancellor Scholz was described as “an offended liver sausage”, but such rudeness in intergovernmental contacts is still quite rare. And yesterday Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukraine’s presidential adviser, referred to the United Nations as a money-making office that is not fulfilling its original functions. To quote him, “We will not get them to renounce their own pointlessness. The fact is that United Nations is absent as an organization.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“In the light of the obvious failures at the front, which can no longer be concealed, it seems that the chiefs of the Kyiv regime have begun to lose their nerve. In a recent interview with The Economist magazine, Zelenskyy, the leader of the Kyiv junta, lamenting the fact that Ukraine’s support among Western voters is plummeting, resorted to direct threats, saying that it was impossible to predict how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Kuleba, also gave way to rudeness in his response to Germany’s Foreign Minister, Ms. Baerbock, when she said that her country had not yet made a decision on the delivery of long-range Taurus missiles.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“For example, just before Secretary Blinken’s visit last week, the Zelenskyy regime used an old trick to commit a bloody provocation, launching a missile attack on a market in Kostiantynivka that it immediately tried to pin on Russia. Except that the facts were caught on surveillance cameras and showed up online, foiling the Kyiv provocateurs’ plot. The video clearly shows that the missile came from areas under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a result, we are now seeing that the Kyiv regime and its sponsors are trying to shut the story down rather than draw extra attention to it, just as they did after they botched a similar provocation when they shelled the railway station in Kramatorsk in April 2022, when the evidence of witnesses to the crime published on social networks clearly pointed to the Ukrainian forces’ guilt.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“For example, we heard directly from Ukrainian and United States officials recently that Kyiv has already received more than $100 billion in military and other assistance from the United States and its allies, while as a result of last week’s visit to Ukraine by Secretary of State Blinken there was another handout of more than $1 billion. The Kyiv regime is begging for new weapons with redoubled pressure and unconcealed insolence, attempting to blame the obvious failure of the so-called counter-offensive that has been under way since the beginning of June on Western countries. All kinds of trickery and shenanigans are at work here.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We convened today’s meeting primarily to discuss once again the significance for the prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis of the country’s Western sponsors’ unfettered supply of various types of weapons to their underlings in Kyiv. Our briefer, Mr. George Szamuely, has just reminded us very professionally of its true genesis. We have been urging the Council to consider the subject almost every month, and every time we find new issues that support our discussion.”
2023-09-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9415 (2023) · source
“This is the same pattern behind the vile provocation in Bucha in April 2022, and there will undoubtedly be further Goebbels-style performances in future.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“One does not need to be a ballistics expert to see, from the available video materials posted by users of social networks, including Zelenskyy himself, that the missile arrived from the north-west, where exclusively Ukrainian positions are located. After realizing that, the Western media that circulated the video even hastily began to edit the reflection of the rocket on the roof of a parked car, which shows the direction of arrival, but it was already too late and the truth came out. This is another horrific lie that Western media is using to cover up yet another Ukrainian provocation, which was traditionally clumsily organized before the visit of another high- ranking official, in this case Antony Blinken. We have no doubt that this was carried out in order to provide the dying regime with a new dose of financing and weapons.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“We see that it is unable to draw such conclusions even now, bringing its inglorious and inevitable end closer. Some Western delegations and representatives of the Secretariat risked mentioning yesterday’s strike on Kostiantynivka, in the part of the Donetsk People’s Republic controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces. That is truly a horrific crime as a result of a rocket strike on a busy city market, killing 16 people and injuring 32. But we are convinced that they will soon forget about and hush up that incident, having understood, just as in the attack on Kramatorsk in April last year, that they are covering up a horrific crime and terrible provocation carried out by Ukraine.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“Responsibility for their deaths lies not only with the Kyiv regime, but also with its Western sponsors, who supply artillery systems and other heavy weapons to Ukrainian nationalists. They are also making a tidy profit from others’ misfortune and therefore are not interested in a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis. We will address this topic again at the next Council meeting on 12 September. It is the inhumane crimes of the Kyiv regime, its maniacal and hopeless desire to deprive the Russian people of their Russian identity that became the main reason that the residents of Donbas, the Luhansk region and Zaporizhzhya are actively and consciously voting for their future together with Russia. Kyiv lost them in the same way it lost Crimea in the past, having drawn no conclusions from its obvious mistakes.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“Despite threats to their lives, election commission workers are being sent to villages and hamlets in areas where fighting is taking place. In the Donetsk People’s Republic, those field groups have travelled to the most dangerous settlements — Horlivka, Volnovakha, Yasynuvata and several areas of Donetsk and Makiivka. Western countries and the Secretariat are well aware of those place names, but they bashfully prefer not to mention them. In our country, however, they resonate with the pain of hundreds of civilians killed and injured civilians, of civilians killed by Western long-range weapons — in their own homes, in shops and cafés, in public places — in other words, in civilian facilities near which there are no military targets.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“From today until 10 September, the single general voting day across our country, elections of representatives to regional parliaments and municipal bodies are taking place across all polling stations, and the active political stance of residents can already be seen based on the results of early and extraterritorial voting. However, the organizers and participants of the electoral process have to deal with the most severe conditions of endless shelling and provocations from Ukraine. From 31 August to 4 September alone, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired at the Donetsk metropolitan area over 120 times using 155-mm Western-style shells, including cluster ammunitions. As a result, 63 men and women sustained shrapnel wounds and a 6-year-old girl died in the Kyiv region of Donetsk. Of course, none of our Western colleagues spoke about that today.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“On 1 September more than 1,250 schools began operating in the four new regions. Liberated Mariupol, which still remembers the brutal crimes of Ukrainian nationalists, is actively being rebuilt and developed. The first of September saw the grand opening of the Mariupol State University, named after Kuindzhi, and the Pryazovskyi State Technical University, as well as 25 schools and 26 kindergartens, including a new modern school built from scratch for 1,100 students. Of course, in order for those four regions to fully integrate into the Russian legal and administrative space, they need normal authorities that have the same powers as in other subjects of the Russian Federation.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“New regions are actively integrating into our country’s life. The Government has approved a programme for the socioeconomic development of these federal subjects, which includes comprehensive rebuilding of infrastructure, implementing tools to execute federal programmes and national projects, as well taking social support measures. We are planning to relaunch key industries and businesses, rebuild production facilities, create conditions for further growth and, most important, improve the well-being of citizens and protect their rights. Russia will continue to consistently and systematically address the problems that accumulated in those regions when they were outside our country. In 2023, more than 700 kilometres of roads have already been repaired and 177 educational institutions have been restored.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“In particular, currently that is taking the form of the mass drafting of soldiers, which has long been called “conscription to the grave”, in Ukraine. It is a well-known fact that NATO is waging a hybrid war in Ukraine with Russia to the last Ukrainian, and now, after a failed counter-offensive, they are already beginning to run out of Ukrainians. Ukrainians no longer want to end up in a meat grinder, and draft officers are trying to catch anyone they can on the street. Information has emerged that the European Union is ready to extradite men of military age to Kyiv, thereby once again flouting its own principles and values. Ukrainian men quickly realized that, and a campaign is gaining momentum on social networks to move refugees to Russia, where several million Ukrainians have already found shelter. Further comments are unnecessary.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“It is enough to mention the Human Rights Watch report, which admitted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled certain areas of the Kharkiv region with cluster munitions, leading to mass civilian casualties, just as the Kyiv regime at one time fired on Bucha, near Kyiv, and later tried to pass off civilian casualties of the shelling as victims of Russian occupiers, laying out the bodies on the streets of the village. It is no surprise that, as our Russian troops approach the Kupyansk district — the local administration admitted — nearly a lot of its residents refuse to evacuate, preferring to wait for our soldiers. And in general, the majority of Ukrainians understand full well that the threat to them comes not from Russia’s actions, but from the criminal policies of the Zelenskyy regime.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“Throughout these years, we have been genuinely investing in the well-being of the region, just as we will continue contributing to the development of Donbas and other territories that Kyiv tried and continues to try to turn into ruins. It is clear that other regions of Ukraine are closely following the experiences of the Luhansk People’s Republic, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions. They have gotten a good glimpse of the true face of the Kyiv regime over the period.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“The reality is that the only ones unsuccessfully attempting to stir up trouble are a handful of saboteur groups sent in from Ukraine, which the same local residents helped to identify and neutralize. That is a huge disappointment for the Zelenskyy regime, which now has a chance to find out how the people of Ukraine really feel about its criminal policies. Of course, the choice of former Ukrainian citizens was also influenced by the achievements of Crimea after it was reunited with Russia. Over the past nine years, life there has changed for the better. People live without fear for their lives, the economy is developing and infrastructure is being built.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“The residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, the Kherson region and Zaporizhzhya region followed his cynical recommendation, returning to their homeland and taking the lands on which their ancestors had lived for centuries with them. The best testament to the voluntary accession of those territories to Russia is the active participation of their residents in the life of the country and national processes, support for efforts aimed at the economic and social revival of those new Russian regions and restoring their indisputable centuries-old Russian identity. We recall the numerous prophecies about the emergence of guerrilla movements in those territories after they became part of Russia.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“They exercised their inalienable right to speak their native language and teach their children in that language and affirmed their right to pay tribute to those who fought to liberate their land from the Nazis on Victory Day, which is sacred for our people, and not to those who collaborated with them and committed horrific crimes. The people of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic had been waiting for that opportunity for eight years under incessant shelling from the Kyiv regime, which since 2014, had set a course for the physical extermination of undesirable residents in the south-east of the country. Ukrainian authorities openly declared Russian and Russian-speaking citizens of Donbas non-human and specimens. In one of his interviews, Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that they get out of Ukraine and go to Russia.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“The decisions of those plebiscites reflect the rights of peoples to self-determination, which, according to the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, may take the form of the establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State. More than 100 international observers from Germany, Italy, Latvia, Venezuela and other countries who followed the process also recognized the results as legitimate. For the residents of those new regions, that was not just a decision on legal status.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“The overwhelming majority of those who voted — 99 per cent in the Donetsk People’s Republic, 98 per cent in the Luhansk People’s Republic, 93 per cent in Zaporizhzhya and 87 per cent in the Kherson region — made a free and informed choice in favour of our country. Despite the difficult security situation and the provocations of the Kyiv regime, the overwhelming majority of voters — from 76 per cent in the Kherson region to 97 per cent in the Donetsk People’s Republic — decided to go to the polls. The referendums were held in full compliance with the norms and principles of international law, no matter how much our Western opponents may try to prove otherwise.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“They are under threat from the actions of the same criminal regime that, since 2014, has been shelling peaceful neighbourhoods and cities in Donbas and that, with the connivance of the United States and its allies, has declared war on everything Russian and is actively promoting neo-Nazi ideologies in Ukraine. The only way to provide the residents of those regions liberated from the Kyiv regime with protection and certainty for their future is by establishing the clear legal status of those territories as part of the Russian Federation, just as, in 2014, the reunification of Crimea with Russia was ensured even as Kyiv unequivocally threatened that region with Ukrainization or reprisals. From 23 to 27 September 2022, the long-awaited expression of popular will took place, and its results spoke for themselves.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“That was the case in Kosovo, for example, where instead of an expression of free will, there was simply a declaration of independence adopted by interim self-governing authorities, which had clearly exceeded their remit. Back then, the same countries that now criticize the Russian referendums argued that Kosovo had the right to secede from the Serbian State owing to the threat of a serious violation of the rights of Kosovo Albanians, even though by that point nothing had truly threatened them for a long time. Unlike the situation with Kosovo, the rights and the very lives of the people of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya were and continue to be under threat.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“However, it seems that, having declared referendums as the topic of our meeting, Albania and the United States have confused them with the current elections to the regional parliament of our new subjects, or rather they intended to use them as a pretence for new attacks on our country, even though Western countries who mentor others about so-called genuine democratic values should be better informed about various forms of the expression of popular will than anyone. We know, however, that when Western interests are at play, minor details such as referendums, elections and the opinion of ordinary citizens in general are not taken into account by our former Western partners.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“When we saw the topic on which today’s meeting was requested, we were pleasantly surprised by the desire to commemorate the anniversary of the referendums on the accession of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republics and the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions to Russia. Frankly, we ourselves had been thinking that it might be worth telling the Council about life in those new constituent subjects of our country.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We regret that the Albanian presidency has followed in the disastrous footsteps of its Western colleagues and has used rule 37 to invite the representatives of five States — Czechia, Estonia, Italy, Poland and Ukraine — together with the representative of the European Union (EU), which makes six delegations, even though it is obvious that there is no added value in their statements, which all toe the same general EU/NATO line. What is the point of making today’s meeting an open debate if Albania intends to hold one on 20 September anyway? This approach devalues discussions in the Council.”
2023-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9414 (2023) · source
“Unfortunately, we have also noted cases involving insults and personal attacks directed at briefers voicing non-Western positions. Such actions are unacceptable and do not contribute to fostering an objective and balanced discussion.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“However, we see that some members of the Council who ostensibly advocate for maximum transparency in discussions on individual country-specific issues in fact use them solely for propaganda shows, while still preferring to consider sensitive and awkward issues behind closed doors. In conclusion, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the issue of inviting briefers to Council meetings to speak on specific topics, which has become a sore point. The persistent attempts of Western colleagues to censor the participation of briefers who, in their opinion, do not meet certain Western criteria, which simply means that they are not ready to sing to their tune and have an alternative view of various international problems simply do not stand up to scrutiny.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We will continue to engage constructively with interested colleagues to negotiate a draft note on informal penholdership. We have repeatedly drawn attention to the backlog in the Council’s documentation flow. The Council produces several hundred documents every year. Unfortunately, the value added of some of them is questionable. The excessive micromanagement of draft resolutions regularly observed is not helpful either. We have consistently maintained that the final products of the Council should be concise, clear, understandable and, most important, action-oriented. The issue of the optimal ratio of open to closed Council meetings remains a hot topic. Russia has consistently advocated a balance between the two.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We have consistently advocated expanding the pool of informal penholders, primarily by including non-permanent members. To that end, we are guided by the premise enshrined in the note by the President of the Security Council S/2017/507 that any member of the Council may be a penholder and more than one Council member may act as co-penholders. We attach particular attention, in that regard, to taking into account the views of African States. We are convinced that revisiting the issue of informal penholdership will contribute to strengthening the effectiveness of the work of the Council. In that connection, we welcome the launch, in which we actively participated, of an ongoing discussion on the issue in the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“The work is often carried out under time pressure that is artificially created and that does not allow for a comprehensive expert review of the documents. In addition, in order to obtain the desired voting outcome, our Western colleagues have begun to favour the method of putting unprecedented pressure on any country that disagrees with this approach with the principle of “if you are not with us, you are against us”. What are we left with at the end of the day? We are left with more half-baked documents that fail to address the key concerns of Council members, provide the Secretariat with unclear instructions and are often unrealistic in their goals and objectives. Such an approach is not conducive to effective conflict resolution. Worse still, it undermines the authority of the Security Council.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“Does such a destructive approach contribute to Council unity? Hardly. Against that background, the issue of informal penholdership on certain dossiers is becoming increasingly critical. The situation in which only three delegations continue to act as penholders on most issues continues. Despite their long-lost status as colonial empires, they are convinced of their own exceptionalism and consider themselves regional experts and condescendingly lecture other States, and even regions. The views of the host country and regional stakeholders, which are often more knowledgeable of the situation on the ground, and sometimes even representatives of the Secretariat, are ignored altogether. Another example — that is still relevant — of misuse of the penholder role is the procedure for negotiating Security Council draft resolutions.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“Some permanent members of the Council are quick to criticize the use of the veto while they conveniently fail to mention the fact that they have no need for the right to the veto, as they have eight votes ready in their pocket, which is essentially a de facto veto that spares them from resorting to its actual use. That is why the Security Council does not stand in need of being expanded through the addition of new like-minded Western members. In-absentia accusations, labelling, sabotage, diktat and manipulation have become some of our Western colleagues’ preferred tactics. With regard to some items, such as Ukraine, the Security Council has long been a platform for voicing the most absurd fabrications and propagandistic rhetoric by Western States. Moreover, the opinion of the West is categorically presented as the only correct one.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“One of the permanent members of the Council said in closed consultations that we are the Security Council, and we do what we want, not what the country we are considering wants. Is that not a neocolonial approach? I would like to emphasize one more thing. The issue of the right of the veto does not fall under the umbrella of the Council’s working methods but is rather a cornerstone of the entire Security Council architecture and a pledge to ensure the Council’s ability to arrive at balanced decisions. However, it does not obviate the need for working methods and approaches that could help to reach compromise. The desire to negotiate, demonstrate wisdom and pragmatism and to hear out and listen to other colleagues on the shop floor is essential.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source