YouSaid · the spoken record

Polyanskiy

lines on the record: 2,335
first: 2018-01-31
most recent: 2023-12-22
sittings or episodes: 300
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

“People such as Oleksandr Turchynov, Andriy Parubiy, Oleh Tyahnybok, Oleksii Bilyi, Andriy Biletsky and similar national radicals, criminals and extremists, openly, in plain sight of their Western sponsors, used methods of terror to overthrow a democratically elected Government. Their first victims were all those who thought differently from them — Ukrainian politicians, journalists and public figures. On 18 February 2014, radicals threw Molotov cocktails at a branch of the ruling party, the Party of Regions. They started a fire and beat the people who tried to escape the office. Two people died. The same terrorist tactics were used in Odesa on 2 May 2014. Organized armed groups of nationalists, with the connivance of the police and authorities, turned a rally against the self-appointed “Maidan authorities” into a massacre.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“Suffice it to mention the recent incident involving the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa, when Ukrainian Internet users exposed the Zelenskyy regime, having discovered that the Cathedral had been hit by a Ukrainian air defence missile. I would also like to mention that one should not think that the Kyiv regime began using terrorist methods only after the start of our special military operation in February 2022. In fact, its terrorist nature was evident immediately after the 2014 coup d’état, when the United States and the European Union financed and organized the bloody Maidan coup. They were well aware of what kind of forces they were bringing to power in the country.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“We are likely to hear today our Western colleagues make some inappropriate comparisons with the precision strikes by the Russian airspace forces against Ukrainian facilities that are aimed at destroying the military potential of the Kyiv regime. They will say that Ukraine is acting that way because Russia is acting that way. But I would like to warn the Council: such an assertion would be blasphemous, because, as we have recently confirmed, the destruction of homes and other purely civilian objects in Ukraine is not due to our strikes, but to the actions of the Ukrainian air defence forces located in residential areas. Numerous video testimonies leave no doubt about this.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“At the same time it is important to understand that hundreds, if not thousands of terrorist attacks that the Security Service of Ukraine planned on Russian territory are being prevented by Russian security services. Such reports pop up in the news almost every day. Just as pointless in terms of gaining military advantage was another act of intimidation — the strike on 22 July with cluster munitions supplied by the United States on a civilian car with journalists in the Zaporizhzhya oblast. The strike killed Rostislav Zhuravlev, a correspondent from RIA Novosti, and inflicted wounds of varying severity on four of his colleagues.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“What can justify the cowardly raids by Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups that do not shy away from shooting fleeing children in the back, as happened in the Bryansk oblast? What kind of threat to Ukraine did Daria Dugina, Vladlen Tatarsky or Zakhar Prilepin, who were targets of assassinations, represent? They were not carrying arms on the battlefield. Their only weapon was words. By assaulting them, the Kyiv regime, in classic terrorist tradition, wanted to silence them and intimidate those in Russia and Ukraine who are not afraid to tell the truth about what is happening in Ukraine and what Zelenskyy’s regime is doing. What military expediency can explain using drones to attack Moscow and other Russian cities?”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“Some colleagues may have already included in their statements today the idea that Ukrainians can use any means possible to defend themselves themselves in the context of the ongoing hostilities against that country. I strongly advise them to think twice before stating that. The Kyiv regime is attacking not so much the Russian military infrastructure, warehouses and fuel depots, but peaceful cities and targets, sometimes thousands of kilometres away from the area of fighting and it is also resorting to ISIL methods of individualized terror. What military expediency can explain the shelling of villages on Russia’s border regions, where no military facilities are situated and civilians are the only ones to be killed and injured?”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“What’s noteworthy is that the tactic for the first attack was again borrowed from ISIL. The driver of the truck that was laden with explosives was unaware that he was being used as a suicide bomber. Among the victims there were only civilians. Another dream of the post-Maidan Ukraine is the energy and water blockade of the peninsula, which Kyiv imposed in September 2015 and in April 2014, respectively. However, after the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions became part of Russia, the Kyiv regime could no longer bother the Crimeans in such a way. So Zelenskyy’s regime set another goal — to ensure the shallowing of the North Crimean Canal, which supplies the Crimea with water. In pursuit of this, they blasted the dam of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“That explains Kyiv’s blind desire to punish the Crimeans and take revenge on them. That explains the two terrorist attacks on the Crimean bridge on 8 October 2022 and 17 July this year. The Kyiv regime did not even try to deny responsibility for that; on the contrary, it claimed responsibility for it. It is important to take into account that the bridge has long been an exclusively civilian structure. It ensures passenger and cargo transit, as well as railroad connectivity with the peninsula. There is has long been no need to use it to transport military cargo. Both Kyiv and the West know that very well. The Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Malyuk, called the first attack “an implementation” of SBU. Deputy Minister of Defence Hanna Maliar labelled it as a “success of Ukrainian army”.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“We can use that to negotiate.” In other words, one of the main ideologists of the Kyiv regime argues that the task of the Ukrainian armed forces is to take the inhabitants of Crimea hostage and use them to negotiate. It is a classic terrorist approach, similar to that of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters or Chechen terrorists who took peaceful civilians hostage, including children in Beslan in 2004, with the tacit connivance of Western moralisers, who, of course, will stay silent now too. It should be said that Kyiv has been for many years losing sleep over Crimea, which has been thriving since its reunification with Russia and receiving millions of tourists. According to Kyiv’s playbook, Crimea is supposed to be depressed and engulfed in protests.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“Western colleagues living in a world where the truth no longer plays a role and where black has become white and vice versa, of course, will not hear or accept anything we say. That is why our efforts are not intended for them, but for those who are still capable of thinking and analysing. To begin with, I would like to mention a quote from a recent television interview with one of the most public talking heads of the Kyiv regime, the former adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovich, who, by the way, claims to be open-minded and even liberal. He stated, “Zaluzhny”, the Head of the Ukrainian armed forces of Ukraine, “has two tasks: to gain access to the sea and to cut off the land corridor. To cut off Crimea, the bridge must be destroyed. That’s it. We have 2 million people in Crimea with nowhere to go and no water or food.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“That ploy can be followed if one assumes that the Ukrainian crisis — and in fact world history as a whole — began on the 24 February 2022. It is satisfying that an increasingly number of our partners understand that that is not the case, and if world diplomacy truly wants to find a peaceful solution to the crisis around Ukraine, we need to examine all its aspects, including various aspects of the harrowing Kyiv regime. Today, we are precisely suggesting that we discuss the terrorist essence of the Ukrainian regime, which was formed after the bloody anti-constitutional coup d’état of 2014 sponsored by Washington and Brussels. For Russians, as well as Ukrainians who have not become zombies by the Banderite ideology, the notion does not even need to be explained; it is absolutely obvious.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“Mr. Polyanskiy (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): As my colleagues have probably calculated, in July, the Security Council, under the British presidency, has already discussed various aspects of the Ukraine topic four times. Furthermore, this issue was also discussed in the General Assembly this month. I would therefore ask what the added value is in having a fifth Security Council meeting on the topic? I am sure that we will hear in this regard our former Western partners’ traditional mantra about Russia’s strategy to divert the Security Council’s attention from its actions in Ukraine. We are already used to the fact that Washington and its satellites are ready to discuss only concepts that are part of their propaganda about the supposedly unprovoked war of choice that Russia is conducting in Ukraine.”
2023-07-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9390 (2023) · source
“Nevertheless, when adopting a final decision on the vote, we felt it was necessary to take into account the positions of the African members of the Security Council. For our part, we will continue to support the Central African Republic bilaterally, including by improving the combat readiness of its armed forces, training service personnel and staff of the law-enforcement agencies, and providing humanitarian assistance. All of this is entirely in accordance with the applicable international legal norms and upon the request of Bangui.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9388 (2023) · source
“Our fundamentally important amendments to the text’s humanitarian elements — these amendments were based on agreed language — were also ignored. It is clear that the informal penholders in the negotiating process — and a number of other members of the Security Council — were cynically guided above all by their own narrow mercantile interests in the Central African Republic and in Africa in general, ignoring the sovereign opinions of African States that are under United Nations sanctions. It is no secret to anyone that sanctions regimes are used by some States as a lever to exert political pressure — they do that under the international umbrella of the United Nations. We do not believe that this approach is constructive, including when it comes to ensuring the effectiveness of the sanctions regimes themselves.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9388 (2023) · source
“We were guided by the idea that the Security Council should not only review its stand on the Central African Republic, in which the situation has significantly improved since 2013, when the sanctions regime through the United Nations was introduced, but also take the necessary decision to correct elements of this regime that are no longer effective, namely, first and foremost, the arms embargo measures. We are convinced that given the current state of affairs in the Central African Republic, the Security Council should have taken a decision to remove any form of sanctions on the efforts of a sovereign State to stabilize and ensure its national security. We regret that our proposals to that effect were not incorporated into the document.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9388 (2023) · source
“At the same time, it has no added value from the point of view of preventing the supply of arms to fighters, who have been acquiring these arms for the 10 years during which the sanctions regime has been in place, and maintaining those restrictions will have no impact on the problem. On the basis of this objective fact, we proposed approaching this problem in a sober and rational way, calling for including in the draft resolution possible modalities for assistance that the international community could provide to the Central African Republic in its work to ensure the security of its borders and curb the smuggling of arms to fighters.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9388 (2023) · source
“Mr. Polyanskiy (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): The Russian Federation abstained in the voting on the draft resolution prepared by France to extend the sanctions regime in respect of the Central African Republic. During work on this document, we clearly outlined our position that the Security Council must, at long last, respond to the repeated and absolutely justified requests of the Government of the Central African Republic to lift the arms embargo. This requirement is also broadly supported by society in the Central African Republic. The arms embargo is hindering the efforts of Bangui to combat illegal armed formations.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9388 (2023) · source
“We hope that the realization of our ideas, which are not aimed at establishing new formats or structures, will rekindle the international process for the implementation of previously adopted international decisions and initiatives in the area, including the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, the Arab Peace Initiative, the Madrid principles, including land for peace, and the two-State solution, with Palestine and Israel coexisting in peace and security, within the 1967 borders.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“Following Russia’s presidency of the Security Council in April, Russia took the initiative to hold consultative meetings among Russia, the League of Arab States and a group of countries of the region that are actively involved in the dossier of the Middle East peace process. As part of those efforts, on 18 July, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Russia, Mr. Lavrov, held consultations with all interested countries in the region.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“In parallel, Washington continues its attempts to monopolize the peace process and slow down the deterioration of the situation on the ground by supplanting a meaningful peace with an economic one. As the recent history of the region shows, such an approach is absolutely futile and could have the opposite effect. Given the unprecedented nature of the escalation, we believe that the planned visit by Secretary-General António Guterres to the Palestinian-Israeli area of conflict is coming at the right time. At the same time, we would like to recall that, for many years, Russia has supported the idea of sending a Security Council mission to the Palestinian territories and Israel, which we believe to be a particularly needed visit in the current situation.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“Those positive trends were made possible thanks to the path that regional countries adopted aimed at the peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes, in line with their national interests and based on dialogue and the principles of good-neighbourliness. At the same time, we must acknowledge that the issue of the Middle East peace process remains outside the scope of such positive processes. We unfortunately note that collective diplomacy in that area has effectively stalled, which was largely the result of the irresponsible and short-sighted decision by the United States of America and the European Union (EU) to freeze the activities of the Middle East Quartet, made up of international mediators from Russia, the United States of America, the EU and the United Nations.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“Against that backdrop, the Israeli leadership is continuing its policy of the wholesale approval of settlement projects in the occupied Palestinian territories. In addition, the Israeli Air Force continues to arbitrarily launch strikes into Syria, as the country continues to occupy the Golan Heights. It is alarming to note the increase in the number of incidents on the Blue Line in southern Lebanon. Despite those worrisome trends in the Middle East, there has recently been some encouraging news, including the improvement in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Syria’s readmission as a member to the League of Arab States.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“The most recent example of the deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli area of conflict was the military operation of the Israel Defense Forces in Jenin from at the beginning of this month, which was the first such operation in 20 years involving Israeli armoured vehicles and aviation, including military helicopters. As a result, approximately 500 Palestinian families, or 3,000 people, were forced to flee their homes yet again, more than 100 people were injured, more than 10 were killed and another 300 Palestinians were detained. In the same context, Israeli casualties have also been on the rise. Under the cover of the Israeli military, settlers are also behaving increasingly aggressively throughout the West Bank.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“Mr. Polyanskiy (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We thank Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari for his comprehensive briefing on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. The unresolved Palestinian question was and has continued to be a major source of tension in the Middle East. Regular outbreaks of violence not only in the West Bank, throughout the Gaza Strip and in Israeli Arab cities, but also along the entire northern perimeter from the side of Lebanon and Syria, have led to greater levels of instability in the region, as a whole, undermining the prospects of reviving the Middle East peace process, on the universally recognized international legal basis, with the central role played by the two-State solution, which we have always supported.”
2023-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9387 (2023) · source
“We understand that the Ukrainian Parliament has hastily introduced a draft bill proposing three-year prison sentences for the people who post such things. Council members can draw their own conclusions.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“If the air-defence facilities had been located outside residential neighbourhoods, the tragedy would not have happened, just as with the many others in which civilians have been killed. We do not target peaceful civilian objects with our attacks. Incidentally, in the same video clips we can see the explosions caused by ammunition and equipment at what Ukraine claims are grain storage and port facilities, which, as has now become clear, it has been using for military purposes under the cover of and in violation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. It is remarkable that, instead of correcting the problems caused by its air-defence systems, the Zelenskyy regime has decided that people posting such truthful evidence that compromises the Ukrainian authorities will be punished even more severely.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“In the flash of the explosion, the spire of the bell tower of the Cathedral, which is located right in the explosion epicentre, is clearly visible. As we have said repeatedly at previous meetings, the main and essentially only threat to civilians in Ukrainian cities during Russia’s precision strikes on the infrastructure facilities related to the Kyiv regime’s military capabilities lies in that country’s air-defence forces, which continue to be deployed in residential areas and city centres, in violation of the basic norms of international humanitarian law. We can find dozens of similar images from Odesa on social networks, captured the day before the anti-aircraft missile hit the Cathedral.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“The nature of the damage within the structure clearly points to the Kyiv regime and unmistakably indicates that the Cathedral was hit by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile. As we know, air-defence missiles are filled with thousands of pieces of shrapnel, which when they explode in the air, are supposed to disperse as widely as possible and to destroy aircraft. That was what we saw huge amounts of embedded in the walls of the Cathedral, photos of which were posted on social networks by Ukrainian users. Attack missiles do not contain that shrapnel, and their impact is significantly greater. Moreover, the same people on social media posted numerous videos on the Internet of a missile that was launched and failed to gain altitude. It then fell right away and exploded.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Mr. Polyanskiy (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): I will not hide our extreme disappointment and bewilderment about the attempts by a number of Western delegations to capitalize on the huge tragedy that took place this week, the considerable damage inflicted on the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour in the city of Odesa, and to attribute responsibility for it to Russia. If their capitals had any respect at all for the truth, they would refrain from such insinuations. After all, if a Russian missile had actually struck the Cathedral, as the Zelenskyy regime was quick to claim, there would have been nothing left of it. However, it was damaged, but not completely destroyed.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Why is it that when this happens in Ukraine today, our Western colleagues, who have influence over the Kyiv regime, either shamefully or deliberately turn a blind eye to this act? Where are their much-vaunted values? Or are they so completely blinded by Russophobia that they willingly bless any and every crime committed by the Kyiv regime, including crimes against the freedom of religion? We hope their societies will judge this situation as it is, as their leaders themselves seem to be afraid to do so.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Worshippers have been fighting them for months, trying to retain access to the Transfiguration Cathedral. To conclude, I wish to stress that no accusations against Russia and no fabrications about the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church grant Kyiv permission to destroy canonical orthodoxy or imprison respected and elderly clergymen whose only fault is that they are defending their faith. What right does the Zelenskyy regime have to expel monks from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of the holiest sites of canonical orthodoxy? Can the parliament of any other State, at the suggestion of the President of the country, adopt a law banning a church whose worshippers represent the majority of people in that country?”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“We will make sure to circulate the content of that report in the Security Council. The repression of the Kyiv regime also affected another holy site — the Pochaiv Lavra, in Ternopil oblast. On 5 April, the website of the Verkhovna Rada, published a draft appeal to the Government demanding the termination of the lease agreement for the monastery. On 10 July, schismatics from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine forced their way into the grounds of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Bila Tserkva in Kyiv oblast. They cut the locks, broke down the doors, blocked the gates and prevented worshippers from entering. Those who attempted to get in for the church service were dispersed with pepper spray; some fire extinguishers were even used. The intruders were supported by the local authorities and the police.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“At the regional level, primarily in western Ukraine, a campaign has already been launched to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The relevant decisions were made in April and May 2023 in Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Lviv, Rivne, Chernivtsi and Khmelnytskyi oblasts. The councils of the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Chernivtsi, Ternopil and Rivne oblasts called on the Verkhovna Rada to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church throughout the country. The city councils of Brovar, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Sumy, and Chernivtsi adopted resolutions to confiscate the land of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Today the Russian Foreign Ministry website has made available a detailed report on the illegal actions of the Kyiv regime against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its clergy and parishioners.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“If not, then why is it that our American colleagues, who pose as universal human rights defenders, are completely silent and unable to utter even a word with respect to the atrocities being perpetrated in Ukraine? At the same time, we are seeing the looting of the cultural, spiritual and historic values belonging to the Ukrainian people. On 28 June, the press service of the Louvre, in Paris, announced that the museum for temporary storage and exhibit received valuable artifacts from the Kyiv Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts, including four icons of the Byzantine period. Moreover, open sources contain information about the export of treasures of the Kyiv- Pechersk Lavra abroad. The tragedy of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout Ukraine war is being waged against canonical orthodoxy.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“That has created unbearable conditions for the monks residing in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. With the assistance of the security forces, actions are being taken to forcibly drive them out of the monastery. At the same time, media outlets are publishing information that the leader of the Kyiv regime is discussing with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople the transfer of the entire Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex to the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a puppet structure that was created on the initiative of former President Poroshenko of Ukraine. As we have already heard today, this is a purely political, schismatic project that has been rejected by the majority of Orthodox followers in Ukraine. Another rhetorical question arises — can a New York court seize a Catholic or Orthodox cathedral and transfer it, for example, to the Baptists?”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Nevertheless, on 4 July, a specialized commission of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine began work to seal the area, that is, to seize the buildings of the monastery from the monks. On 6 July, lawyer-protopriest Chekman, speaking in the interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, stated that representatives of the sanctuary, with the assistance of the police, broke the locks and infiltrated section 70 of the monastery. He also published photographs showing police officers at the premises, including special forces personnel, who cordoned off the premises. As at 14 July, at least eight buildings located on the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra are known to have been closed. Worshippers who are gathering to support the monks are being forcefully dispersed by the police.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“They refused to comply with that criminal order and to receive a document for the transfer of property. On 13 June, the Kyiv court cynically rejected the claim of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church against the museum-sanctuary to ensure that the monastery community was not prevented from worshiping. On 30 June, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve demanded that the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church leave the premises by 4 July. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church refused to comply with that illegitimate demand. There is no court decision in that regard and such instructions from the authorities were appealed at the judicial level.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“None of those saints of God, may they be blessed, renounced their faith. Three drowned, and one lost consciousness and was carried away by the current. The Ukrainian military decided that he was dead and did not pull him out, but he survived and told me this story.” This brutal targeting of Metropolitan Pavel is an attempt by Kyiv to use force to break the resistance of Orthodox Christians who are fighting for their canonical church and, above all, to break the resistance of monks of the main Orthodox sanctuary in Ukraine — the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra — whom the Kyiv authorities have forced to vacate the premises. On 6 June 2023, the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, Oleksandr Tkachenko, demanded that the monks leave the premises within three days.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“In February of this year, at the proposal of the Kyiv regime, the court sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of anti-Ukrainian activities a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who was captured by the Kyiv security forces in the Krasno-Limansky area of the Donetsk People’s Republic temporarily controlled by the regime. A total of seven clergymen were sentenced. Here is an excerpt from the statement of Father Gedeon, to whom British censorship did not give the floor today: “Recently, I met with clergy who arrived from Ukraine. I cannot provide details owing to safety and security concerns. They described a terrible incident in early May in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian military personnel drove four clergymen into icy waters in an attempt to force them to renounce their faith and to declare ‘Glory to Ukraine’.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“From October 2022 to May 2023 alone, the Service conducted approximately 100 searches in monasteries, churches and administrative buildings of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church dioceses throughout Ukraine. Nearly 250 clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were banned from entering the country; they turned out to be outcasts in their native land. With regard to clergy, including 14 bishops, there were 61 criminal cases lodged on charges of treason and inciting religious hatred, and 19 metropolitans were deprived of Ukrainian citizenship under various pretexts.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“The bail was posted, so this person who caught red-handed trafficking in humans is now roaming free, and the spiritual leader of millions of believers, an elderly and ill person who needs daily care, is languishing in prison. We turn to the entire international community and all faith leaders with a call to stand up in defence of Metropolitan Pavel. The magnitude of the persecution by the Kyiv regime of the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who are now being accused of crimes against the State and public security, is reminiscent of the most tragic totalitarian episodes in world history. According to a report of the Security Service of Ukraine published in early April 2023, since 2022 the Service carried out more than 40 so-called “comprehensive counter- intelligence measures”.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“There is a video of him that shows the tragic picture of an elderly man — a highly respected bishop of a church — being forced to remove his panagia prior to his imprisonment in a detention centre, which shook the Orthodox world. For the first time in modern history, a high-ranking bishop of a church was persecuted by a State and sent to prison for his faith. With their unique brand of cynicism, the Kyiv authorities set his bail at 33 million hryvnia, which is approximately $1,000,000. For comparison, I will mention another judicial decision of the Kyiv authorities. Denis Vorody, a former child educator from Chynadiiovo in Kyiv’s Zakarpattia oblast, who tried to export and sell an 11-month-old baby boy for $25,000 on the territory of a European Union country, was released on bail earlier this week, with his bail set at $27,000.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“The arsenal of the measures taken includes legal bans, systematic searches, the raiding of churches, the interrogation of parishioners and clergy, their arrests, physical violence and vandalism. State and pro-Government media outlets systematically publish false information discrediting the Church and its hierarchs. The Kyiv regime, without waiting for pseudo-legislative measures, decided to seize from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church the Kyiv- Pechersk Lavra, the holy site of canonical orthodoxy. The vicegerent of the Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshhorod and Chornobyl, was placed under house arrest on false charges. On 14 July 14, after around- the-clock house arrest, he was placed in a detention centre.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“And what if the United Kingdom, for example, were to arrest one of the leaders of the Muslim community, or if the British Parliament was debating a bill to ban that religion in the country under the pretext that the Islamic holy sites are located in Mecca and Medina? Is it hard for the Council to imagine such a situation? It is hard for us as well. It seems more like the plot of a fantasy movie. But unfortunately in Ukraine, this horror movie, with the collusion of the Western sponsors of the Kyiv regime, is becoming a reality before our very eyes. The Zelenskyy regime has been consistently pursuing a State policy of the destruction of canonical orthodoxy in Ukraine.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“I urge Council members to simply think about the blatant lawlessness and violations of basic religious freedoms that is taking place before their eyes. They merely need to consider the fact that the Parliament in Kyiv is considering a legislative ban on and the seizure of property of a canonical church with a centuries-old history, to which the majority of believers in Ukraine belong. Such a cynical act is unparalleled in modern history. For example, how would our host country react if the President of the United States were to propose to Congress to ban the Catholic Church and to seize St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on the grounds that Catholics are subordinate to Pope Francis? What if the President of the United States were to arrest one of the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States?”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“I will set aside for now the fact that the draft law egregiously violates at least 10 articles of the Constitution of Ukraine that regulate the freedom of speech and, above all, civil liberties. It ignores the fact that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is an independent church with its own governing bodies operating under Ukrainian laws, and that it is not governed from Russia. It also ignores the fact that there have been no judicial proceedings against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and that its alleged violations of Ukrainian law have not been established in a legal procedure. There is simply no point in talking about all this, because Ukraine ceased to be a State governed by the rule of law since at least 2014. And the Kyiv regime does what it wants without regard for the law.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Russia already drew the Security Council’s attention to Kyiv’s campaign to destroy canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine during our meeting on 17 January (see S/PV.9245), at a time when the effective seizure of churches of the Ukraine Orthodox Church and the persecution and beating of priests — which had been under way since the bloody coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014 — had reached a new level, a legislative one. As Mr. Taksyur already mentioned today, on 19 January, draft law no. 8371 was introduced into Ukraine’s Parliament, essentially providing for the banning of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the seizure of its churches. As far as we understand, as early as tomorrow, on 27 July, it may be put to a vote.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Mr. Polyanskiy (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We thank Ms. Nihal Saad and Mr. Yan Taksyur for their briefings. First of all, I would like to reiterate, as I have done before, that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church did not ask us to convene today’s meeting and did not authorize us to speak on its behalf. Nor are we speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church or its specific priests or parishioners. We are well aware of the conditions in which our co-religionists are living in Ukraine, and we know what kind of pressure the Zelenskyy regime is exerting on them. And we have no illusions as to the true worth of their assessments of our current efforts, which we are likely to learn about today from social networks.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Its decision to block our proposal through the prerogative of the Security Council presidency and to prevent the participation of an Orthodox priest is a blatant example of precisely how London really views all those lofty ideals and how easily it is ready to abandon them to advance petty parochial attempts to spite the Russian Federation. We recall the English saying, “practice what you preach”. We have lost count of the many times that London has failed to adhere to it.”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source
“Mr. Polyanskiy (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Today is a historic and extremely unfortunate day for the Security Council and the entire international community. We have seen the blocking of the participation of a representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at this meeting. Western delegations have therefore effectively openly demonstrated solidarity with the repressive policy of the Kyiv regime targeting canonical Orthodoxy, which is a blatant example of egregious double standards undermining freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, freedom of faith and all the ideals that they proclaim to uphold. We call for the presidency of the United Kingdom to be judged in terms of its hypocrisy as one of the sponsors of the resolution on human fraternity and religious tolerance (resolution 2686 (2023)).”
2023-07-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9385 (2023) · source