Photo: Permanent mission of the Russian Federation to the UN
Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine. Key points:
- I would like to draw attention to the fact that we have just seen a gross violation of Security Council’s provisional rules of procedure by the US Presidency. In particular, it was a violation of Rule 44, which goes as follows, “Any representative may make a speech in a language other than the languages of the Security Council. In this case, he shall himself provide for interpretation into one of those languages”. This was not done and UNSC members spent more than 15 minutes listening to a speech that no one save those who know Ukrainian or Russian did not understand. Besides, as it turned out at the end of the address, the briefer is very fluent in English, and we bet that in Russian too. This was a political move, a showy act of disregard for the rules of procedure of the Security Council, which the US Presidency was not able to stop.
- We know that the US and its allies dedicated this meeting to Ukraine’s Independence Day. Such days usually provide a good reason to take stocks, ponder on achievements and failures. So what is it that present-day Ukraine can be proud of? Let’s just briefly list whatever lies on the surface. By all means, the main achievement is a totalitarian dictatorship that is getting stronger from day to day. It does not tolerate any dissidence or opposition, rewrites history, and elevates glorification of Nazism and Hitler’s accomplices to a rank of state policy.
- We know about dozens of thousands of Ukrainians who were arrested for browsing Russian websites on the Internet, having Russian music in their playlists and reading Russian books. Everything related to Russia Ukraine had declared to be hostile long before the special military operation started. We have witnessed and we continue to witness many politically-motivated assassinations, cases of blackmail and intimidation of political opponents. Do you know other countries where such things happen openly?
- Do you know in what other countries religion-based persecution is taking place? Countries where canonical church is banned, holy sites get desecrated, and clergy become prosecuted for their faith and beliefs?
- Add to this rampant corruption, which has not gone anywhere since the independence, and which has taken on an unprecedented scale due to billions of dollars of Western aid that the Kiev regime receives and embezzles immediately. Ukrainian media space is filled with news on this subject, but our former Western partners ignore all this, although in Western countries, too, there is growing indignation at this situation, which the authorities are trying to dismiss.
- What other state (apart from the notorious Islamic State, banned in Russia) is openly promoting terrorist methods as a tool of state policy? What other state takes pride in attacks and assaults against civilians, in using them as suicide bombers, in blackmailing them vis fraudulent cyber schemes, forcing them to commit crimes in their own country? Are there many such states in the world?
- Are there many states who try to falsify their own history by brainwashing their people and indoctrinating them with absolutely false ideas about their country and its role in the global civilization and culture? We have already shown here in this Chamber Ukrainian schoolbooks that claim that Jews, French, Portuguese and many other peoples descended from ancient Ukrainians. What good can come out of this historical nonsense and heresy which is consonant with Nazi theories about a super nation that is superior to its neighbors?
- The worst thing about it is not even that Ukraine abased itself so far as this, but that it has done so under the tutelage of the United States and its allies, who even today demonstrate a very selective blindness and deafness when it comes to the crimes of the Kiev regime, both inside and outside the country. Moreover, Western capitals today are in fact complicit not just because they supply Zelensky’s regime with weapons that kill civilians. And not because they also share intelligence and send mercenaries and technical experts. In the first place, they are complicit because they cover up the monstrous lies that the regime is spreading about itself and about Russia. The lies about the true objectives of and reasons for our special military operation, about the true culprits of the deaths of civilians that are caused by Ukrainian air defense systems deployed in residential areas in violation of IHL. The lies about staged provocations like the ones in Bucha, Kramatorsk or the Mariupol Drama Theater. The lies about Ukrainian children, whom we actually rescue, being allegedly kidnapped by Russians. And, finally, the lies about the criminals whom today's Ukraine honors as heroes.
- We have heard enough of these lies in the statements of our Western colleagues today, and of course we will hear more. It is no coincidence that the American Presidency, following a well-known scenario, has pulled in more Western allies to participate today. You have long been acting on the principle that the worse the lie, the easier it is to believe. But there is one thing you forget: the more you lie and try to smear Russia, distorting what we do and why we do that, the more these lies corrode the foundations of your societies, your values and principles. The consequences of this are already showing. More and more people around the world begin to see the truth about what is really happening and become horrified by its scale.
- And the truth is that the United States and its allies pre-programmed this proxy war against Russia at least back in 2014. Washington, London and Brussels, who are fighting with others’ hands, are not interested in having it stop. A new textbook of armed action is being written today right before their eyes, and they are reading it as new chapters emerge, gaining experience in modern methods of combat without risking anything except the weapons they supply to Kiev.
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