Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC: “It is already clear that in this "proxy war" that the US, EU, and NATO wage on Russia with the hands of Ukrainians, the losing side is Ukraine”

Photo: Permanent mission of the Russian Federation to the UN

Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC briefing on Ukraine. Main points:

- Today's meeting, convened at the initiative of a number of Western delegations creates a feeling of a deja vu. A year ago in this chamber the Maltese Presidency organized a similar "ritual" dedicated to the anniversary of the start of our special military operation, where European ministers flocked together to read out copy-pasted anti-Russian remarks. A year ago, there was a trend for the Western bloc to publicize its "pseudo-peaceful" initiatives, which, in essence, boiled down to the sly Orwellian oxymoron "war is peace". At the same time, the West was openly indoctrinating V. Zelensky, who clearly lacks strategic thinking, with the dangerous and absurd illusion that with Western support he would be able to defeat Russia on the battlefield. A certain gentleman from the "beautiful garden", for whom everyone from outside the "golden billion" is a weed plant, tried especially hard. Another “Orwellian thing” was that the EU has been supplying weapons to the Kiev regime on which they spent money from the Peace Foundation.

- Another year has passed. Ukraine utterly failed in its celebrated counteroffensive, but the West continued to "pump weapons" into the Kiev regime anyway, encouraging it to throw more and more Ukrainian lives into the flames of the conflict. Throwing away all decorum, the United States started to call this conflict a profitable business project - so profitable it turned out for American military industry. At the same time, they persistently promoted a discussion of a completely dead-end "pseudo-peace formula", where countries of the Global South and East were dragged in either in Copenhagen or Davos.  To make that happen, they used all sorts of tricks in order to pass it off as "broad international support". At the same time, it is obvious that the global majority are well aware what stands behind these intrigues and are not at all eager to appear as bit-part actors. Besides, they see that it is pointless to discuss anything without Russia.

- What has this year brought to Ukraine? More senseless victims numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the impending collapse of the economy and the deepest crisis of statehood. The latter due to the fact that the complete incapacity and lack of independence of the leadership in Kiev becomes increasingly obvious to the people of Ukraine.

- Be that as it may, it is already clear that in this "proxy war" that the US, EU, and NATO wage on Russia with the hands of Ukrainians, the losing side is Ukraine. No less important (though it may be hard for our European colleagues to accept) is that Ukraine is not the only loser in this conflict. The other one, and maybe the main one is the European Union itself.

- Moreover, today not only Ukraine, but the whole of Europe is at risk of once again becoming a springboard for a military confrontation, in which you are being consistently dragged from across the ocean. Does the population of Europe need this? I would like to believe that they do not. Opinion polls conducted in January in 12 European countries show that only 10 % of Europeans believe that Ukraine can defeat Russia.

- One of Kiev’s puppeteers, a representative of the United Kingdom wondered if we are not sorry to send our sons to fight in Ukraine. Of course we are. We are sorry for poor Ukrainians too, who are sent to die for the sake of Western geopolitical interests. But the British representative forgot to mention that we did not come to start a war, but we came to stop it. To stop the war that Kiev had been waging with your support on the civilian population of Donbas. When Russia stepped in, Kiev’s war on Donbas had already killed 14,000 people over eight years. This was the main reason why we started a special military operation.

- As for who we are fighting in Ukraine, you can answer this question yourseves if you recall whom the Kiev regime praises as heroes. Who are Bandera and Shukhevych, whose units, together with the Nazis, killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians?.. We believe that if a country's leaders honor Nazis, speak like Nazis, and allow the display of Nazi symbols, then Nazis they are. And you are too cowardly and selectively blind to recognize this.

- In the long run, it will matter a lot what conclusions the Western bloc draws for itself. Will it impose, with suicidal persistence, its one-sided "rules-based order", trying to divide the world into satellites and enemies, or will it engage in a meaningful dialogue to find ways to build a truly just world order where the interests of all states will be guaranteed?

- You build up ridiculous fears about Russia's allegedly imminent aggression against European countries. Have you by any chance forgotten that it had been European states – Poland, Sweden, France, Germany – that attacked the Russian state in different historic periods trying to conquer it, and were invariably defeated? The US tried to do the same during the Cold War. We also know the disreputable role of Great Britain, whose diplomacy for centuries set countries and peoples against each other, and who continues to do so to this day. Russian statehood was formed against the backdrop of constant external threat. Our "peace-loving" Western colleagues do not like to remember the fact that it was Russia that had to repel Western aggression all the time. But our people remember this very well. We know that the public in Western countries is losing its trust in the anti-Russian propaganda about a mythical "Russian threat". That is why their governments surround them with a "bubble of lies", trying to prevent any truth from getting in. But truth still finds its way thanks to the efforts of those who understand what the world will be exposed to should the current confrontation continue or aggravate. And then there are breakthroughs like the one made by Tucker Carlson, an American journalist, whose interview with the Russian President was an eye-opener for millions around the world.

- Beyond the horizon of the current moment, the debate about a fair and indivisible Euro-Atlantic security becomes increasingly important. In its current battered form, it applies only to the United States and its NATO allies, who have arrogated to themselves the right to interfere in any international issue and the internal affairs of other states. They deployed military bases by our borders in violation of key understandings that ended the Cold War era. Western leaders deceived us then and want to deceive us now by absolutizing the right for NATO to expand uncontrollably and to turn virtually any corner of the world into the its "zone of responsibility".

- I would like to recall that Russia offered a substantive conversation on security guarantees as early as the end of 2021 and put forward concrete proposals to NATO and the United States, but those were arrogantly rejected. That resulted in a new "hot-phase" conflict in Europe. The West left us no choice, we had to protect our people and our future. At the same time, we have never refused to negotiate. It is the Kiev regime who did so. I would like to emphasize that it is still possible to preserve Ukraine in some form, but it must be a peaceful, neutral Ukraine, in which there is no discrimination and Russophobia, in which Nazi criminals are not glorified, and from which no threats come to Russia. These are precisely the goals that our special military operation has set to achieve. Therefore, it is up to the collective West. They will have to choose whether it will take us to fight to the end, which we know how to, or whether common sense will prevail in Washington, London and Brussels and they will try to save at least something of Ukraine.

- This chamber is overcrowded. And so is the speakers’ list for this meeting in the part of non-members of the Security Council, who call themselves ministers of foreign affairs of Western countries. The European Union, save few exceptions, has no countries with independent foreign policies. Therefore, there are no foreign policy ministers, but there are just officials who claim to act like ones. The entire foreign policy of the EU is governed from Brussels, and Brussels is governed from Washington. So please tell me what value the repetitive remarks of those officials are going to add (apart from the opportunity to appear on their national TV with words of “unconditional and unwavering support” for their clients in Kiev)?

- There is an Envoy of the European Union to the United Nations in New York. He can speak out a consolidated position. EU states pursue a common foreign and security policy. What new can you add to that? Perhaps a couple of words about the weapons that you supply the regime in Kiev with? The very same weapons that Kiev uses against non-military targets – peaceful civilians in Russia towns.

- When the UK takes the floor, we suggest that they tell us how come that former Prime-Minister Johnson talked Kiev out of signing an initialed peace treaty with Russia in April 2022? How come that he inspired Kiev to keep fighting and doomed dozens of thousands of poor Ukrainians to die on the frontline?

- Where were you all yesterday when the Security Council was discussing the Middle East and the situation in Gaza? Where was the Secretary-General? I would like to remind you that none of the countries of the European Union, and indeed of the West, has ever taken the initiative to convene a single meeting on Gaza, where the number of civilian casualties (most of them women and children) as a result of flagrant violations of IHL by Israel in four and a half months has exceeded the figures of any military conflict in recent years.

- This speaks very eloquently of your hypocrisy and your double standards.

- As a heads-up, I am not going to listen to ritualistic incantations of representatives of European capitals. Let them compete in rhetoric with one another cluttering the screen time with hypocrisy and double-dealing.

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