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

“We note with regret the gradual decline in the Council’s capacity for constructive discussion and negotiation. Instead of seeking solutions to complex issues, which does indeed demand both time and a willingness to compromise, Western countries often deliberately choose the easiest path, which leads to the use of the veto or abstentions on resolutions. Again, a recent example is the situation regarding the sanctions on Mali, when our repeated calls to the authors of the draft resolution to take a constructive approach and show some sense were simply ignored. And we certainly do not need to hear from anyone about the painstaking efforts they made to agree on resolution 2690 (2023) on Mali, which wound up completely ignoring the country’s concerns. Here is a little secret.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“Despite the fact that the reasons for which the sanctions were introduced are no longer actually relevant, new reasons keep on being found to leave them in force. We should also point out that the penholders on sanctions files are often guided by the nature of their own interactions with countries on the Security Council’s agenda. The Council has once again been witnessing persistent attempts to extend restrictions on the Central African Republic and Mali for the sole purpose of maintaining external pressure on them. The sovereign opinions of those countries on the Council’s agenda, which have made significant progress in stabilizing the situation on their territories, have been blatantly ignored, as have their legitimate concerns. And we have always been respectful in our actions regarding Mali.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“However, the informal penholders on the Lebanese file prefer to simply ignore Lebanon’s views. It is noticeable that our Western colleagues have a policy of changing the focus of the discussion if the issue raised does not correspond to their narrow national interests. An obvious example of that is the discussion on reviewing or lifting sanctions affecting countries where restrictive measures have ceased to respond to the current situation. It is no secret to anybody that sanctions regimes are used by some States to exert political pressure under the cover of an international and United Nations umbrella, an approach that can hardly be called constructive, including in ensuring the effectiveness of sanctions regimes.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We also see attempts to shift responsibility for emerging crises onto others, as happened with the Council’s consideration of the Afghanistan issue, when some members of the Council kept trying to limit comprehensive discussion of it to the issue of respect for human rights. We continue to believe that it is unacceptable to ignore the views of a country hosting a United Nations peacekeeping contingent on its territory. For example, the Lebanese authorities have repeatedly sent the Council an unambiguous message about the importance of strengthening the coordination between the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and the Government and the army of Lebanon, including in order to ensure the protection and safety of the United Nations personnel along the Blue Line.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“However, they deliberately ignore the fact that in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the Security Council should not address such issues, not to mention the fact that it cannot help to resolve them. Such actions once again demonstrate that the true goal is to put pressure on objectionable countries. The real reasons that led to a particular conflict are often deliberately ignored or glossed over. As a result, some United Nations missions, including peacekeeping operations, receive vague mandates with inappropriate functions that they simply cannot fulfil. That leads only to increased distrust in their impartiality and effectiveness. One example is the situation with the agreement on the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We see that the non-permanent members are taking an active interest in the procedural aspects of the work of the Security Council, which unquestionably advances the collective development of the Council’s best practices. Regrettably, the Council has recently been encountering increasingly substantive problems in its activities. We have consistently emphasized that cosmetic fixes in this area are not enough. We need a serious, comprehensive discussion. The practice whereby various members are using the Council to pursue their own narrow national interests has taken on threatening proportions. Thanks to their deliberate pressure, the Security Council’s agenda is constantly expanding to include issues of domestic politics, human rights, climate and other matters, all of it done, needless to say, on the most plausible pretexts.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“Using populist rhetoric in this area, including in the context of the never-ending aim of increasing the level of transparency in the Council’s work, not only does not get results but on the contrary often harms the cause. We note the efforts of the delegation of Albania to improve the working methods of the Security Council and the introduction of the practice of preparing an annual report of the Informal Working Group (see S/2022/1032). We welcome the Council’s adoption of the presidential notes prepared by Albania (S/2023/612 and S/2023/615) aimed at improving the effectiveness of the Security Council’s work, including that of its subsidiary bodies.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We welcome the results achieved over the years, as many of the ideas expressed in the Council Chamber later went on to form the basis of the note by the President S/2017/507, which is particularly important as a compendium of the working practices of the Security Council and is actively used by the non-permanent members as an important primary source. At the same time, given the sensitive nature of the issue of the Council’s working methods, we believe that any reforms must be aimed at genuinely improving the Council’s effectiveness and efficiency in fulfilling its main tasks of maintaining international peace and security.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We are confident that today’s discussion, along with the external assessment of the current state of affairs, can make a tangible contribution to the work of the Group and help to enrich it with new ideas. Of course, that is in the understanding that the working methods themselves and any steps taken to modify them are and will continue to be owned by the members of the Council. The Russian Federation has consistently supported the Security Council’s comprehensive discussion of the subject in an open format with the participation of all interested Member States. We believe in the practical significance of the discussion, which now dates back many years, to the extent that it provides an opportunity to strengthen the Security Council’s coordination with the Member States more broadly.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We congratulate you, Mr. President, on the beginning of your country’s presidency of the Council for the month of September. We hope that its working methods will not disappoint you — and vice versa. We thank you for your briefing, your leadership of the work of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions and for organizing today’s meeting. For a number of years now the Security Council has been discussing its working methods in an open format, with the participation of a wide range of Member States. We believe that periodically reviewing the Council’s arsenal is a useful practice that makes it possible to identify areas that can be further improved.”
2023-09-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9410 (2023) · source
“We call on the leadership of UNIFIL to continue to coordinate its actions in its area of operations with the Government of Lebanon.”
2023-08-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9409 (2023) · source
“In this case it is Lebanon, whose leadership has repeatedly conveyed to the members of the Security Council an unequivocal message on the need to strengthen the coordination among the Interim Force, the Government and the army of the Republic of Lebanon, including with a view to ensuring the protection and security of United Nations personnel on the ground. We would like to emphasize that our position during the voting was based solely on our disagreement with some of the wording in the resolution. At the same time, we continue to support the activities of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which play a key stabilizing role in the context of the ongoing tensions along the Blue Line. We hope that the resolution adopted today will not complicate the situation in southern Lebanon.”
2023-08-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9409 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): The Russian Federation abstained in the voting on resolution 2695 (2023), submitted by France, on the mandate renewal of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), as a result of a series of very contentious amendments made to the text at the final stage of the difficult negotiation process. We regret that the final text put to the vote today failed to maintain the fragile compromise that had been previously found by the penholders. We have consistently always proceeded from the need to take into account the opinion of the country that is hosting a United Nations peacekeeping contingent on its territory.”
2023-08-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9409 (2023) · source
“But it is of fundamental importance that the sanctions be aimed specifically at resolving the issue, and not turned into an instrument for placing external pressures on Mali’s internal political problems. The potential of the Panel of Experts has long been exhausted, and it should therefore be closed. We closed the Panel of Experts on Guinea-Bissau, for example, and nothing dramatic happened after that. We once again call on the members of the Council to heed our words and vote in favour of our draft resolution. I would also like to say once again to the representative United States, into the microphone this time, that if our draft resolution is not adopted, then there will be no opportunity for further discussions on the matter.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): I did not intend to take the floor, but there is one clarification that I must make following the statement you made, Mr. President, in your national capacity. As we have already said, we urge Security Council colleagues to demonstrate wisdom and pragmatism by supporting our alternative draft resolution (S/2023/639), which takes into account the position of African States and the African members of the Council that the sanctions regime be maintained for a certain period of time. The United States delegation said that it was a six- month period, but is in fact for approximately one year. I want to make it clear for the members of the Council: the sanctions regime would be maintained in order to try to harness it to help implement the Algiers accords.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“However, it is regrettable that the position of the Russian Federation was not taken into account, or was any substantive step taken towards Mali’s official request. Our vote against the draft resolution today hardly comes as a surprise to anyone. We hope that, in the future, the penholders on draft resolutions will prioritize basing their efforts on pragmatism and the interests of the host country in order to avoid unnecessary confrontations in the Security Council, especially in a situation in which a compromise agreement could have been reached if a number of delegations had demonstrated the political will necessary.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Russia voted against the draft resolution (S/2023/638) on extending the sanctions regime on Mali. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we have repeatedly called for a constructive approach and a reasonable compromise, the text submitted completely fails to take into account the concerns of the Malian side or the position of the Russian Federation. Before the voting, we reiterated in detail the reasons and considerations underlying our decision to vote against it. And neither did we hide those reasons during the negotiation process. We worked in complete transparency, on the basis of concrete proposals aimed at reaching an acceptable compromise. Until the very last minute, we had every opportunity to make it work.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Moreover, the Council must work in line with the parameters and resources available. However, that should be done only with the consent of the participants in the peace process. In our alternative draft resolution (S/2023/639), we propose to disband the Panel of Experts and to make this the final extension of the sanctions regime.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“We urge our colleagues in the Council to demonstrate wisdom and pragmatism by supporting our alternative draft resolution, which takes into consideration the position of African members on the Council that the sanctions regime needs to be maintained in order to uphold the peace agreement. However, it is fundamentally important that Council sanctions serve only to address this issue and not be used as a means of foreign influence in Mali, which the Panel of Experts on Mali established pursuant to resolution 2374 (2017) has become. We disagree that the Panel of Experts is the only United Nations mechanism at the disposal of the Security Council for supporting these efforts. It is clear that for one of its parties, for a host of reasons, the Panel is no longer needed.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“We all remember that the Security Council imposed a sanctions regime on Mali in response to an official request of the Malian authorities, the main goal of which was to help implement the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali. There is no doubt that attempts to thrust Security Council’s guardianship on Mali without its consent are futile. Using the Council’s authority of the Security Council to push through approaches that Malians find unacceptable may jeopardize further cooperation between Bamako and the United Nations, which is particularly worrisome given the current withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. We must not allow that to happen. Based on those considerations, the Russian Federation cannot support the draft resolution.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Today’s meeting was preceded by lengthy work on a draft resolution on the renewal of the sanctions regime concerning Mali that would be acceptable to members of the Security Council and regional actors. However, we must note that draft resolution S/2023/638 does not address those issues. We are convinced that the Council’s adoption of the draft resolution in its current form, given the fact that Bamako submitted an official request for the lifting of the sanctions regime (S/2023/605, annex), would just undermine the sanctions regime and the Malian peace process. It would merely further antagonize the parties.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Now I am prepared to say a couple of things. On behalf of our delegation, I would like a procedural vote on conducting consultations. I would ask that this matter be put to the vote.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): I did not in fact ask for the floor. I actually wanted to hear your response, Mr. President, to the proposal by the representative of Mozambique.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We are not asking for consultations after the voting. We are asking for consultations before the voting so that we can try to ensure that the voting in the Council is unanimous. That is the first point. Secondly — and perhaps this is rhetorical — why are you using rulings, Mr. President, during this American presidency, that are based on the opinion of some Member States of the Council — in particular one penholder — and correspondence between political coordinators? I would like to remind you that, first of all, there is not just one penholder. I would like to know the opinion of the other penholder. Also, there are other members who have asked to postpone the voting on this draft resolution. And that was also ignored. How are we to understand that?”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): I would like to ask you, Mr. President: Whom do you believe to be members of the Council, and whom do you not? Two members of the Council have requested consultations. You are referring to members of the Council, but this is not a unanimous decision. There are members who want to have consultations now. Are you rejecting the request to hold consultations?”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Have I correctly understood, Mr. President, that you are refusing the request of Member States to conduct consultations?”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Given the fact that we trust that we will be able to make significant progress on the matter we are here to discuss today, Mr. President, we would like to ask for consultations before we return to the meeting.”
2023-08-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9408 (2023) · source
“As always, for our part, we stand ready to engage in constructive and substantive discussions on ways to concretely address the full range of problems on the Korean peninsula, in the same way we encourage other Council members to do so.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“There is no doubt that its potential adoption would bring much more benefit than such a priori dead-end measures, such as the demonization of Pyongyang and the inhumane policy of increasing sanctions pressure. We are convinced that the policy of harsh restrictions has long been obsolete. It fundamentally contradicts efforts to restore trust, which should be the primary concern of the Security Council. We believe that the Council will actually be able to overcome this urgent problem if all members stand ready to work in an unbiased manner, while responding to threats to international peace and security and taking into account all related factors, rather than blindly continuing to recite hackneyed propaganda clichés.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“In that regard, we once again draw attention to the fact that the Russian-Chinese action plan aimed at a comprehensive settlement of the situation on the Korean peninsula, involving concrete steps in all problem areas, remains on the table. Undoubtedly, its implementation will require the establishment of a mutually respectful dialogue and the consideration of the legitimate concerns and rights of all States involved, including, of course, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. However, at this point in time, we have observed an unwillingness to do so, owing to the positions of individual Council members, whose statements continue to hardly pay attention to finding realistic ways to resolve the cumulative issues of the subregion. The Russian-Chinese draft political-humanitarian resolution remains relevant as well.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“The convening of a meeting last week on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (see S/PV.9398), which was absolutely pointless from a practical standpoint, further attests to that. In order to promote their biased agenda, those who organized the event disregarded the mandate of the Council, which is not mandated to deal with human rights issues. Against that background, it is not surprising that tensions in North-East Asia, as well as the entire Asia- Pacific region, only continue to rise. We would like to recall that the relevant Security Council resolutions call for seeking ways to find a political and diplomatic settlement of the situation on the Korean peninsula. The latest developments involving the peninsula point to the need for immediate de-escalation, abandoning provocations and returning to negotiations.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“There are also concerns about contradictory messages from United States allies in North-East Asia — Tokyo and Seoul — concerning the purported strengthened cooperation with Washington in nuclear development, which could easily be taken to mean that United States nuclear weapons might be deployed on their territory and that those countries might develop their own. Certain Council members have attempted to sweep all of those circumstances under the rug, although they ultimately are the primary reasons for the deterioration of the situation in the region. Every delegation here today is well aware of that, but there has been no attempt to ameliorate the situation. We note that the pressure on Pyongyang has not been exclusively limited to military activity. Unfortunately, the Security Council has also been used as a platform.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“Let us not forget the series of United-South Korean aerial exercises in June, which included United States fighter jets and strategic bombers, and the presence of a United States nuclear submarine in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula. The attempts by the United States and its allies to create new “boundary lines” in the region to please Washington through the establishment of closed alliances, as well as plans to move part of NATO’s military infrastructure there, have had an extremely negative impact on the situation.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“We regret that such an important aspect has been completely disregarded by the Secretariat, which should take an impartial and objective stance. Russia has consistently opposed any military activity that poses a threat to the security of the Korean peninsula and its neighbours. Meanwhile Washington and Tokyo, together with Seoul, have regularly escalated the situation around the peninsula. In particular, the allies’ regional military exercises are aimed at achieving that goal within the framework of their concept of so-called extended deterrence of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the scale of which is steadily increasing. That is a blatantly provocative approach that further complicates the possibility of initiating dialogue, which is essential to strengthening regional security.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“Clearly, convening this meeting today is nothing more than a cynical and hypocritical attempt by the United States and its allies to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang and divert attention from the reckless escalatory actions of Washington and its allies in the region, which account for the real source of threats to international peace and security. At the same time, in its customary fashion, Washington is hypocritically shifting the blame on others, while refusing to acknowledge any responsibility for the escalation in North-East Asia. Like Caesar’s wife, of course, the United States is beyond suspicion. We are surprised by the fact that not even a single mention of the destructive military activity of the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan in North-East Asia was made by Assistant Secretary- General Khiari in his briefing.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): This meeting yet again this month exemplifies the brazen approach of the United States presidency in using its seat on the Security Council to advance its narrow, self-serving politicized agenda. While the presidency requested an open briefing on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in its national capacity, together with Albania, Ecuador, France, Japan and Malta, it did not bother to create even the semblance of consultations among Council members on the need for such a discussion and its format. They were the ones who requested this meeting, and they immediately scheduled it themselves. By taking such actions, the United States shows that it does not care at all about the opinion of other Council members.”
2023-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9406 (2023) · source
“The only positive in that regard may be that the example of Ukraine has shown many people what results from blind obedience to the West and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own interests for the sake of its geopolitical agenda. May it be a lesson to others, and may the tragedy of Ukraine never again be repeated.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“After all, they are seeing a new military operations manual being written before their eyes and gaining experience in modern methods of warfare while risking nothing more than the weapons they have supplied to Kyiv. Otherwise they would have allowed Zelenskyy and his crew to conclude the peace agreement that was almost reached in March of last year with very favourable terms for Ukraine. But the collective West has no need of that scenario. We therefore have nothing special about which to congratulate Ukraine on its Independence Day. An unenviable fate awaits it as a blind weapon wielded by the West, and the contours of that fate are becoming increasingly clear.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“It has long acted according to the well-known principle that the more horrible the lie, the easier it is to believe it. But it has forgotten one thing, which is that the more they lie and try to denigrate Russia and distort what we do and why we are doing it, the more those lies eat away at the foundations of their own societies, values and principles. The consequences of that situation are already becoming clear. We can see that more and more people all over the world are beginning to realize the truth about what is really happening, and they are horrified by its scale. The truth is that this proxy war on Russia was programmed by the United States and its allies at least as long ago as 2014, and Washington, London and Brussels, which are using other people to fight it, have no interest whatever in ending it.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“It lies about the true goals of our military operation and the reasons for it, about those who are truly to blame for the deaths of civilian thanks to the Ukraine’s air defence activities, deployed in residential areas in violation of international humanitarian law. It lies about staged situations and provocations such as in Bucha, Kramatorsk and the Mariupol theatre. It lies about our alleged abductions of Ukrainian children — children whom we have in fact saved. Finally, it lies about the criminals whom present-day Ukraine reveres as heroes. We have heard enough of such lies in our Western colleagues’ statements today, and of course we will hear more. It is no coincidence that the United States presidency has followed its usual pattern of bringing in a bunch of its Western allies to participate in today’s meeting.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“The saddest part of all is not even that Ukraine has sunk to such claims of so-called achievements, but that it has done so under the direct tutelage of the United States and its allies, which even now are selectively entirely blind and deaf as soon as what is at issue is the crimes of the Kyiv regime both at home and abroad. Moreover, Western capitals today are essentially its accomplices, not just because they are supplying the Zelenskyy regime with the weapons used to kill civilians and with surveillance intelligence, mercenaries and the technical specialists it needs, but above all because they are concealing the monstrous lies that the regime spreads about itself and about Russia.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“Are there many States that take pride in assaulting and attacking civilians, using them as unwitting suicide bombers, blackmailing them through fraudulent cyberschemes and making them commit crimes in their own country? Are there many States that attempt to falsify their own history by brainwashing their own citizens, indoctrinating them with lies about their own country and its role in global civilization and culture? We have previously shown here in this Chamber Ukrainian school textbooks asserting that the Jews, the French, the Portuguese and many other peoples are descended from ancient Ukrainians. What good can come of such historical fantasy and nonsense, with echoes of Nazi theories of a master race superior to its neighbours?”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“To that must be added the rampant corruption that nothing has been done about since the country gained independence and that today has reached unprecedented proportions, thanks to the billions of dollars in Western aid that are dished out to the Kyiv regime and immediately stolen. Ukrainian media constantly publishes news about the issue but apparently it is only our former Western partners who fail to notice it, despite the fact that indignation about the situation is growing in Western countries while their authorities try to ignore it. What other State, besides the notorious Islamic State, openly promotes terrorist methods as State policy?”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“We know that tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been arrested merely for browsing Russian websites on the Internet, listening to Russian music on their phones or reading Russian books. Everything linked to Russia was declared hostile in Ukraine long before the start of our special operation. We have borne and continue to bear witness to a multitude of political assassinations and cases of the intimidation and blackmail of political opponents. Are there any other countries in which such incidents happen openly? Are there any other countries where there is open religious persecution, the canonical church is banned, churches, parishes and monasteries are seized, holy sites desecrated and the clergy persecuted for their faith and beliefs?”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“Russia could not allow that, nor could we tolerate the entrenchment on our borders of the Russophobic neo-Nazi regime, which posed a direct threat to Russia. As we know, today’s meeting was timed by the United States and its allies to coincide with Ukrainian independence day. On such days, it is customary to take stock and highlight successes and achievements. So what can today’s Ukraine boast of? Let us try to list only what we can see on the surface. Needless to say, the main so-called achievement is the genuine totalitarian dictatorship that is gaining strength every day, where any dissent or opposition is prohibited, history is being rewritten and the glorification of Nazism and Hitler’s henchmen has become part of State policy.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“We were compelled to come to the defence of the women, children and elderly who were being destroyed by Kyiv after Ukraine and its Western sponsors refused once and for all to comply with the Minsk agreements, which were endorsed by the Security Council. Moreover, as we know very well today, for all those years, the document was used as a mere smokescreen for preparing Ukraine for war with Russia. Until the last moment, our country leveraged diplomacy to address the situation. For many years, we called, including in this Chamber, for the implementation of the Minsk agreements. In late 2021, we went as far as to make unprecedented proposals for security guarantees with Western States. All of them were rejected, and Ukraine openly prepared for the forceful seizure of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“Today there are no more than 29 million people living in the country. However, Ukraine’s Western sponsors care not one bit about those people. As Polish President Duda said, Russia can now be defeated cheaply, given that “American soldiers are not dying”. When faced with those unpalatable facts, our Western colleagues usually respond that we would not find ourselves in this position had Russia not launched a special military operation against Ukraine. However, the tragedy of that country began long before that, when the West chose Ukraine as a pawn to fight against and weaken Russia. We would not find ourselves in this situation if the Kyiv regime had not launched a war in 2014 against its own Russian-speaking citizens in the east of the country.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“That regime is grabbing young Ukrainian men off the streets, shoving them into cars and, even without basic military training, sending them to take part in “human wave attacks” against Russian military fortifications and minefields, without any concern for the casualties beyond the pale of imagination. And our former Western partners are only encouraging Zelenskyy and his clique, providing them with weapons and demanding that the bloodbath continue. Recently, experts from the German newspaper Die Welt efficiently calculated that the Kyiv regime would need to mobilize another 3 million people in order to defeat Russia, and that is in spite of the fact that the population of Ukraine, according to United Nations data, declined from 48.2 million people in 2001 to 36.6 million at the beginning of 2022.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“How were Ukrainians able, overnight, to replace the heroes who liberated the country from fascism with fascist collaborators complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians? How was an essentially Russian-speaking country, in fact, able to stoop so low as to persecute Russian speakers and bomb peaceful cities in Donbass, whose inhabitants stood up for their values? And why is it that there was no response to this from Western countries, which outwardly advance the values of tolerance? The answers to those questions lie at the root of the tragedy that Ukraine is experiencing now, being governed by the criminal Kyiv regime that is serving exclusively the geopolitical interests of the United States and its allies, which are waging a hybrid war against Russia in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian.”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source
“Only four years later, on 9 May 2014 — just under three months after the anti-constitutional coup in Kyiv, during a similar parade on the streets of Mariupol — militants of the neo-Nazi Azov and Dnipro-1 battalions opened fire on vehicles and ambulances and openly killed those who took to the streets to honour the memory of their fathers and grandfathers. According to information from local law enforcement agencies, 99 people were killed, and 119 were wounded. Let us also recall that, shortly before that holiday, on 2 May 2014, approximately 50 peaceful protesters who stood up in defence of the Russian language were burned alive in the trade union building in Odesa. What happened in those four years?”
2023-08-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9404 (2023) · source