This is probably the strongest condemnation of the “civilised West” to date. Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine is available in English at the site of the “Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN”. Video in Russian is available at their Telegram channel.
Before reading on, do watch the following three short videos:
Backup at Rumble.
Backup at Rumble.
Backup at Rumble.
Main statement:
Mr. President,
We thank Roger Waters for his statement with an analysis of the history of the Ukrainian crisis and assessments of the significance of the Minsk agreements with regard to the relevant diplomatic efforts.
Today marks ten years since the adoption of UNSC resolution 2202, which endorsed the “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”. Having thus expressed its support for the solutions that had been found in Minsk a few days prior, the Council took the implementation of these agreements under its supervision. We all hoped then that a long-term and lasting peace would finally come, but all hopes of ours were fated to fail. Moreover, today the very word-combination “Minsk agreements” has become something of a diplomatic euphemism replacing the words “failure” or “lie”. We believe that our Security Council has every reason to analyze why this happened and why peace in the east of Ukraine never came after that.
First of all, let me briefly recall that the 13 points of the Package of Measures unambiguously defined the sequence of concrete steps to normalize the situation in Ukraine and bring Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LNR and DNR) back to Ukraine’s fold. The last of these steps was to restore Kiev’s control over the State border in the east of the country. For this to happen, the Ukrainian leadership needed to undertake a number of measures geared towards granting the LNR and the DNR broader autonomy and protecting the identity of the Russian-speaking population.
However, it soon became clear that the nationalist Kiev regime, which came to power as a result of an anti-constitutional coup in 2014, from the very get-go had no intention of implementing a single one of the document’s provisions. We are well aware of what transpired in Minsk during the meetings of the trilateral contact group. And we know how the Kiev representatives openly and complicitly sabotaged the agreement. We repeatedly talked about it, but all this fell on deaf ears and continue to fall on deaf ears. Certain Ukrainian officials did not shy away from explicitly saying that since the Minsk agreements “were largely the result of pressure from critical circumstances and external factors, the strength of their binding nature rests solely on Ukraine’s goodwill” and “the main and only stratagem of the Ukrainian government is to buy time and bolster forces” (Mr. Gorbulin, advisor to the President of Ukraine). Representatives of the Kiev regime characterized the commitments which they signed to as “a noose around Ukraine’s neck” (Mr. Kravchuk, Ukraine’s ex-president) and “dead history” (Defense Minister Mr. Reznikov). They spoke in a tone suggesting that the agreements in no way could be implemented “on Russian conditions” (Mr. Kuleba, former Ukraine’s Defense Minister) and, on the whole, “implementing the agreements means destroying the country” (Mr. Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine). They clumsily drew conclusions that the agreements were not binding in nature, and that they “allow for different interpretations” (Mr. Zelensky) and “need to be reformatted” (Mr. Reznikov).
At Council meetings, we repeatedly drew attention of our colleagues to these unacceptable statements and to the inadmissibility of Kiev’s sabotage of the document endorsed by the Security Council resolution. We called on all members of the Security Council who are responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, to unequivocally demand from the Ukrainian leadership to comply with the obligations assumed. However, our Western colleagues have consistently avoided this and even attempted to pin on Russia the blame for the failure to implement the Package of Measures, even though our country was not a party to it and had no obligations thereunder.
Later, the real reason for such a policy came to light. As became clear from the confessions of a number of former senior politicians (specifically, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Pyotr Poroshenko), Western sponsors of the Kiev regime needed the Minsk agreements purely as a “smokescreen” to arm Kiev and prepare it for war with Russia. This is precisely what finally compelled us to begin our special military operation in Ukraine almost three years ago. We have repeatedly stated in this chamber (and not just in this chamber) that if the Minsk agreements had been implemented in good faith by Ukraine and its sponsors, none of what followed would have basically transpired.
By ignoring the unambiguous signals that the Kiev regime was not going to implement UNSC resolution 2202, Western States completely failed a critical mission of the Security Council, which they single out in many other country specific situations – namely, they failed in preventive diplomacy. Today they are trying to deny all this, but it is clear to all of us that it was precisely the Western countries that had the tools and levers ten years ago to guarantee a peaceful resolution of the internal Ukrainian crisis, which was triggered by the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev of February 2014. Not only did they fail to leverage these tools, but also they tried to stir up Ukrainian nationalism and Russophobia cultivated thereby, and thus create all the conditions for a direct confrontation between Ukraine and Russia. Ultimately, “having sown the wind, they reap the whirlwind”.
Mr. President,
Today we observe that the deliberate sabotage of the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures had fatal consequences for Ukraine. Not only did Ukraine miss the chance for peace and the restoration of control over Donbas, but also deliberately failed to harness the best means to resolve the internal conflict. The opportunity was lost to transform Ukraine into a civilized State where the rights of all citizens are respected without discrimination on political, linguistic or national grounds. Instead, Kiev embraced the path of confrontation, repression, suppression of freedom of speech and other human rights and freedoms. As a result, Ukraine today is bitterly referred to by many of its fellow citizens as a “Zelensky concentration camp”; at our previous meeting we provided concrete evidence showing what this country has morphed into.
Having lost the opportunities offered by Minsk, the Kiev regime was unable also to seize on the agreements that evolved from the Minsk Package of Measures, I refer to the agreements reached in Istanbul just a month after the start of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine. Today, Kiev is bitterly regretting this, understanding that the Minsk provisions are no longer attainable and that the new conditions for ending the hostilities would be far worse for Ukraine. But the past is past. It is not only Zelensky and his corrupt clique that bear full responsibility for this situation, but also the sponsors of the Kiev regime, who actively persuaded Zelensky to unleash this suicidal war against Russia.
Mr. President,
We can all see what processes are currently taking place throughout the world after the Republican administration came to power in the US. Diplomacy has finally come into play, and this is what we have been calling for over the recent months. Thus, opportunities have emerged for the prompt end to the hot phase of the Ukrainian crisis. Naturally, all those who are currently working to achieve this goal are analyzing, inter alia, all previous attempts to put an end to the armed confrontation in the east of Ukraine. And the Minsk agreements are among the most important undertakings in this regard. What lessons should today’s negotiators draw from the process that failed so ignominiously three years ago? Let us try to answer this question.
First, we understand now that the guarantors of Minsk, and on the whole the EU countries and the UK, are absolutely unfaithful to their word and cannot be a party to any future agreements on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis whatsoever. They are blinded by primordial Russophobia, maniacal desire to defeat our country on the battlefield using to this end those Ukrainians who are left alive. Today’s European elites are unfortunately incapable of thinking strategically and can hardly even imagine any security formulas involving Russia, since for many years, they have been shaping – covertly or overtly – exclusively anti-Russian political and military configurations. We do not know how long it will take to heal their minds (if it is possible in principle), but it is clear that they won’t do for guarantors or even mediators. We can tell it also from what was said the other day by European participants of the Munich Security Conference – their statements were reckless, hawkish and divorced from reality.
Second, a ceasefire and a freezing of the Ukrainian conflict along the contact line per se are unlikely to secure the conflict resolution. This is the most important lesson to be drawn from Minsk and this lesson should be borne in mind by those who will be working on the new contours of possible agreements. All the more so given that European political dwarfs do not conceal the fact that in the event of a ceasefire they intend to rearm Ukraine and prepare it for a resumption of war. Suffice it to quote the EU’s new chief diplomat, Ms. Kallas, who said in Munich that the EU should “reallocate certain resources” to enable Ukraine to continue hostilities. There is no need for comments here. Well, this is what a EU-style diplomacy looks like these days. If we entrust the EU with any aspect of the Ukrainian settlement, then certainly nothing will be left of Ukraine.
Third, in order to establish lasting peace in Ukraine, we need to eradicate the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict. The purpose of Minsk was to grant such autonomy to the east of the country and give such guarantees to the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine so that Donbass can be eventually brought back to Ukraine. This also included education in the Russian language, the opportunity to practice canonical Orthodoxy, and the right to honor those heroes who liberated Ukraine from Nazism rather than those criminals who alongside the Hitlerites exterminated hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians, Roma and the same Ukrainians. People should have the right not to honor those who are worshiped in Ukraine today, with Bandera on top of the list (whom Roger Waters mentioned today). All of this remains relevant, with the only one distinction – It is not only Crimea that Ukraine irreversibly lost, but also the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, which became part of Russia. Accordingly, there is also a need to rectify the situation in those regions that remains under Kiev’s control.
Finally, it is essential that the authorities dealing with the implementation of new agreements be genuinely interested in them, and these authorities are to emerge as the result of democratic elections. Zelensky, who pretends to be the Ukrainian president, lost his legitimacy last May. Moreover, having been elected by three quarters of Ukrainians for his promises to establish peace in the East, what he did was exactly the opposite – he dragged the country into a conflict for the advancement of someone else’s geopolitical interests, and at the cost of lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. It is clear that neither he, nor his associates, nor those who opposed the Minsk agreements should have any role to play in the new Ukraine. This, in fact, is evidenced by public opinion polls in this country, which clearly indicate that Zelensky’s cabal has lost even symbolic support of its citizens. That is precisely why the professional Ukrainian comedian and former President is deathly afraid of elections and is doing everything possible to drag them out.
And lastly, the future Ukraine should be a demilitarized neutral state, not a part of any blocs or alliances. After all, as has been acknowledged by our American colleagues, in particular President Trump, it was exactly the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO that triggered the crisis. I think, this is now clear to everyone.
There are other important elements of future agreements that do not directly pertain to Ukraine. But we will not delve into them here today.
Mr. President,
We would very much like to hope that the tenth anniversary of the adoption of Security Council resolution 2202 will serve as a good opportunity for our European colleagues to finally get back to reality and stop provoking Zelensky and his henchmen into futile confrontation. He himself is clinging to power and trying to safe his skin at any cost, and to this end he is ready to engage in any provocations only to prolong hostilities and make his compatriots die. This is attested to by new recent clumsy provocations by the Kiev regime such as the drone strike on the protective shield of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the shelling of the IAEA inspectors who were deployed for rotation at the ZNPP. If you do not finally humble your protege in Kiev and put him in his place, this will bring no good to Ukraine, and the parameters for a settlement that we are discussing now will seem nothing but a pipe dream to the Ukrainian authorities after a while. Just like the Minsk agreements, which they themselves thwarted.
Thank you.
Right of reply:
Mr. President,
Today’s meeting speaks volumes. I would like to thank our European colleagues and their allies for the fact that today, they yet again eloquently demonstrated in their statements that European diplomacy is completely divorced from reality and has nothing to do with any sort of analysis. This diplomacy lives in the past and it will remain there in a dustbin of history. Its objective today is to extend the agony of the Kiev regime as long as possible in the hope that this regime will be able to weaken Russia. Continue, colleagues, to harbor this chimerical illusion, and we will move further and solve this crisis one way or another.
Our British colleague lectured us today. She is well-advised to study the documents a little bit more closely before attending these meetings. The Minsk agreements were concluded not between Ukraine and Russia, but rather between Ukraine and the DNR and the LNR. Just read the documents, look at the text, it is available to everybody.
Now everyone is trying to lay the blame for the failure to implement the Minsk agreements at Russia’s doorstep. We conscientiously sought to compel Ukraine to comply with the Minsk agreements, but Ukraine, in turn, persistently sabotaged them at the behest of its Western sponsors. Well, we are being blamed for the demise of the Minsk agreements, but in fact we did nothing but established the medical fact, because by that point, the Minsk agreements (which all of you here had sabotaged) were already dead. And they died because of you, Western colleagues and guarantors of the Minsk Agreements. All this is thanks to your efforts.
Thank you.