Arria Formula Meeting Entitled: "The Reign of Terror: Crimes of the Kiev Regime in Ukraine and Beyond."

Dear colleagues, we are glad to have this opportunity to hold another round of discussions in the informal setting of AA formula meetings, as we have done repeatedly over the past several years to address different aspects of the Ukrainian crisis.
For the last couple of months owing to the escalation initiated by Ukraine and its European supporters, the Security Council has convened with great frequency to deliberate on calaamous consequences of the recent assaults, chiefly human casualties.
This has drawn international attention to immediate tragedies, including the terrorist attacks on a college in Sabelsk and a passenger bus in nakyva, as well as attacks on atomic energy stations, as well as other heinous incidents.
While these events rightfully demand attention, a serious examination of the conflict's root causes, including the persecution of the Russian speaking population and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church remains largely absent from the discussion.
Today, we will remedy this obvious mistake for it's precisely these issues that reveal the origins and true depth of the crisis around Ukraine.
You will see that it was these grave circumstances that led to the conflict rather than the other way around.
That's why it's crucial to shine a spotlight on the illegal policies of the Kyiv regime towards its own citizens that have brought about these conditions.
We all know what happened after the so called revolution of Dignity in 2014, which was nothing more than a violent coup d'etat.
As soon as radical neo Nazis took control, they turned their anger against the Russian speaking people in the southeast of Ukraine, launching a full scale war against them simply because they didn't want to give up on their language and culture.
Zelensky himself referred to Russian community as species and told those who identify with the Russian culture to buzz off to Russia.
I would like to emphasize this once more.
Long before we began the special military operation, the Kyiv authorities treated Russian speakers as subhumans.
For the small number of Ukrainians who openly hated all things Russian, but were nevertheless promoted by the authorities to the highest echelence of power, Donbas was not enough.
Since 2014, Kyiv has spared no effort in marginalizing the Russian language nationwide, pushing it out of education, the mass media, culture, and public life.
Russian language is spoken by millions of Ukrainian citizens, not only ethnic Russians, but also people of various other nationalities.
And today, it's prohibited by law in Ukraine, a manifestation of xenophobia with few parallels elsewhere in the world.
For years, the authorities in Kyiv have been steadily developing a legislative framework that effectively serves as a legal facade for actual ethnocide, openly violating basic norms of international law.
In June 2026, this campaign culminated in legislation that deprived the Russian language, which remains the native language for more than 80% of the country's population of protection still afforded to the languages of other national minorities.
Children are even prohibited from speaking Russian during school breaks, and teachers who continue to use it in the classroom inevitably face dismissal.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture has promoted the systematic removal of Russian literature from library collections, accompanied by public book burnings in cities, squares, cheered on by nationalist radicals.
The repressive state apparatus relies on a network of so called language activists and the police to identify and punish dissenters.
In several cities, special language inspection units have been established to monitor the public use of Russian.
These volunteers operate in streets and other public spaces, monitoring compliance with restrictive language policies and effectively institutionalizing state oversight of citizen linguistic choices in their daily lives.
While this doesn't fully reflect the gravity of the situation, we would like to illustrate our point by showing you a short video.
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Our first briefer is Mr.
Pavel Volkov, a journalist and human rights activist from Ukraine and a native of Zaporoa.
The Kyiv authorities held him in a pretrial detention center for over a year simply because he revealed the truth to his readers about what had been happening in the special military operation.
Pavel Psvvnslova Silva Yes.
Thank you very much.
Good evening to you.
Good morning to you in New York.
I am a Russian from Ukraine, and I was born in Zapoze.
I am a journalist.
In 2014, I was fielding the referendum in Donetsk.
And in 2015, I reported for the Russian mass media from the front line.
After the Minsk Agreement, I returned to Zaporoje.
In 2017 18, I spent 13 months in a Ukrainian jail, where I was first in danger of receiving a life sentence.
And then after requalification, up to 15 years of imprisonment.
There are two charges against me.
Separatism and this is because of several publications describing the reasons and reasons for and outcomes of my done, and terrorism for my reporting work in the Donbas.
At the same time, all of those who were in my reporting stated the following.
What we want is peace.
We just want to make sure that our city is no longer sheled The security forces of Ukraine brought ultra right people into my proceedings.
They threatened me, they intimidated my family, my lawyers.
After five years in court proceedings, it turned out that everything that I had done was not a crime, that the Constitution of Ukraine gives me the right to express my viewpoint, even if it is not to the authorities' liking.
But I was thus prosecuted illegally, but no one was punished for that.
And opposition viewpoints in Ukraine are w being prosecuted and are being prosecuted still.
One can have different viewpoints about the reasons for the war, but you cannot overlook the fact that today in prisons, in jails throughout the Ukraine, there are thousands of people who are there in jail for political reasons.
That clearing up the dissenters is something that the Ukrainian Special Services call stabilization activities.
And as a result of that, it's not that everyone ends up in the official places for detention.
Up to 2022, international organizations recorded at least five secret prisons where citizens who had been arbitrarily detained were kept without being charged.
Without following any other kind of legal procedure where they were being tortured and humiliated.
After 2022, the most famous such jail, what was the gym of the Special Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv.
And there, the opposition was beaten until they confessed.
And this was prior to being officially placed under arrest.
If I had not left my home and then my country in 2022, I could have become one of such people.
In 2013, under the accusation of state treason, Only one case of criminal proceedings was begun.
After the Maidan victory in 2014, a large scale of a series of citizens arrest began.
Those citizens who were critical of nationalism of Ukrainization by force, of glorifying the Nazi collaborations during the Second World War, who were against seeing law enforcement and the authorities the extreme right wing people from the street, who were against closing down of Russian schools, against economic blockade, and the shelling of Donbas.
If you study the court decisions during the study of the court decisions in the course of my travel through Ukraine, in 2018, 2020, I was a reporter and human rights defender.
And I saw that the evidentiary basis that came from the prosecution was very weak.
Hundreds of people were charged under separatism and terrorism.
And this was because they would lay flowers at Soviet monuments, provide humanitarian assistance to children's hospitals in Donbas or organize events having to do with Russian culture.
After Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine, between then and the beginning of the conflict in February 2022, the scope of political repression went down, but the arrests themselves did not stop.
For example, in 2022 in Hsun, a Russian language teacher, Tatiana Kumi was jailed because she was conducting Pushkin balls with children.
After February 2022, the situation for the Russians who expressed sympathy to Russia but were citizens of Ukraine, citizens of Ukraine who express anti war sentiments or had family of friendly connections in Russia worsened drastically.
Today, in Ukraine, thousands of people 16-85 years of age are deprived of their freedom because of what is considered to be improper likes and posts in social networks, for being in correspondence with their relatives in Russia, for discharging their professional duties, teaching, for example, in those territories which were first taken and then left by Russian forces.
After the withdrawal of the Russian forces from the Kyiv Hersn and Hakov Oblast, thousands of citizens were detained.
Those who had been distributing Russian humanitarian assistance, those who worked as mail deliverers as firefighters, ambulance drivers, municipal service workers, who taught Russian in schools or institutions of higher learning.
For example, entrepreneurs from her son, Alona and Dmitry Dobrosky were arrested because under Russia, what they did was they collected garbage in the city.
And the entrepreneurs from Kyivsk Oblast, Aleksandra Harchenka and Anatoly Mera.
Were jailed because they distributed humanitarian assistance to people from their village.
I Schenko from Hakov Obst was detained because she was a school director.
Five years of detention was the sentence to Valentin Rapalo from Hao Oblast.
This was because she headed municipal enterprise.
In Hersn, the Ukrainian security forces seized doctors Ilana Misskv because she had provided healthcare to Russian soldiers and provided medications to Hersn hospitals.
In a number of cities of Ukraine, the so called language patrols are crisscrossing the streets.
And they and they take those street vendors who sell books in Russian.
They also find people when they sing songs in Russian.
The analysis of information from the prosecutor's office, Prosecutor of Ukraine's office covering 2022, 2025 shows that 376,000 criminal proceedings were started related to the conflict.
A guilty verdict was issued to under 28,000 proceedings.
Suspicions were issued.
In other words, political prosecutions were begun against 20,000 people.
More than 12,000 sentences were handed down, and detentions, in other words, political became political prisoners, and that covers more than 2.5 thousand people.
Many of people who have opposition tendencies were just forcibly disappeared.
My friend, for example, Nikolai Tudoreno, he's a reporter from the part of Donbas that is under Ukrainian control.
There is a huge issue having to do with the right to a fair trial, and it has to do with the fact that lawyers decline to provide protection for political detainees.
And this is done under pressure from radicals who are threatening their life.
And some legal specialists do not do their duty because of a political bias.
Many judges understand that the sentences that they hand down are illegal.
But nonetheless, they do hand them down because they're afraid of the Ukrainian security forces and right leaning radicals.
The issue of political repression in Ukraine is the subject of my reporting a human rights and scientific activity.
And in this short statement, unfortunately, I cannot dwell in detail on that.
I mean, I cannot dwell in detail on the statistics.
I cannot tell you the stories of those who suffered or those who were tortured in pretrial detention and in colonies.
But I stand ready to share this information with anyone who is interested.
The organizers of the meeting have my details, and I call on everyone, regardless of your political views, to not remain indifferent to the fates of the innocent people.
Some of them perish in prisons and others are just not in a position where they can wait for justice for years, as was the case, for example, after the Pinochet regime in Chile fell.
This kind of practice has to be stopped right now.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.
Thank you very much, Pavel, for your story and for sharing it with us.
I wanted to attract attention of members of the council that despite the fact that we checked all the services in this room before ARA has started, now all services are off except the translation.
We do not have the webcast.
And we don't have any translation provided by the UN.
But we made a decision to proceed despite this unfortunate development that I'm very short of calling a sabotage against, again, the, uh, the truth related to use of Russian language and the crimes committed in Ukraine.
So we decided to proceed with our I formula as it is, and we then later on circulate the information and the documents after it.
And we decide to proceed not to be silenced.
And thank you all again for coming and listening to what we have to say.
I will now give the floor to Aleksandra Smchenko a member of a political council of the party Detava political party that was banned by Kyiv by fabricating a politically motivated criminal case against him.
Alexander, please be aware that we do have an interpretation and it's simultaneous.
Please, you know, speak in the common pace.
You know, you will get translated.
Please, you have the floor.
Please unmute yourself.
Insulation of glut microphone pals.
Good afternoon.
I was told that I only have 15 minutes, so I'll be very brief and just cover the main points.
Now, why am I speaking to you against the background of a white wall? This is to make sure that the killers from Zelensky whom he sends cannot identify my location.
And the murder of political opponents have become a routine practice even before 2022.
And currently, it is the main instrument that's being used by the fascist regime, which has taken power over my motherland, Ukraine.
Unfortunately, not all of my peers have been able to avoid meeting hired killers.
A member of the political council of our party, Kymsov perished.
Our friend Alexa uvo died.
He is a person of disability.
He he lost his legs and arms when he was a child.
Zelensky regime did not spare him and sent a missile against him.
I am currently under sanctions by the Bandera regime.
Zelensky introduced them illegally against me using his decree.
Under Ukrainian law, you cannot introduce sanctions against a Ukrainian national unless there is a court decision to do it.
But Zelensky did do this without a court decision.
Zelensky regime is accusing me of attempting to undermine the constitutional order.
But Zelensky himself was the one who trampled the Constitution underfoot, and this was done even before 2022 when he attacked human rights and usurped the authorities of other bodies of power.
In particular, he destroyed the body of constitutional oversight, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
But I'm not here to talk about myself.
Ukraine is being used so as to conquer Russia.
That is exactly what I mean, and the technology here is well known.
In North America, the Europeans consistently pitted tribes against each other.
And this is exactly what's being done.
The Russian people are being pitted against each other and we're forced to fight each other.
Unfortunately, I do not have time to have a long historic background.
All those who interest, I recommend that you read my book called The Fourth Reich, in which I describe in detail how for decades Ukraine is being created into an instrument to use against Russia.
Conducting wars using somebody else is something that the West knows how to do very well.
I hope that no one at the UN did not forget there was GA resolution number 260 of ninth, December 1948.
This is a resolution on genocide.
One of the indicators of genocide is also a ban on the use of one mother tongue, the destruction systematic destruction of books in the mother tongue, destroying the historic and cultural heritage.
The Bandera regime headed by Poshenka and Zelensky destroyed tens of thousands of monuments.
And this is something that took place prior to February 2022.
My grandfather fought Hitler Germany for four years.
He participated in storming Berlin, and in 2015, in Ukraine, a law was passed which introduced criminal responsibility for using the very symbols under which my grandfather fought by deprivation of liberty And fighting a historic memory is genocide.
This is what the UN resolution states.
So up to ten years is something that you can receive for having historic memory.
Ten years is something you receive if you say, long live Ukraine beautiful and strong.
These are the first lines of the Soviet anthem of Ukraine.
And this is because this runs counter to the fascist regime headed by Zelensky who constantly is asking in his anthem Alexandra, let me interrupt you for just a second says the president could you please read your text without the pauses? Because we have simultaneous interpretation here.
Because this goes against the fascist leanings of Zelensky regime, continues Mr.
Smchenko which constantly is asking with his anthem, Has Ukraine is not dead yet? The state institutions are promoting insults and discrimination.
In 2014, already in extra judicial process, I was deprived of the right to participate in government activities.
Thus, my civil civil rights were limited.
Let me just recall here that this is the right I have under Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Declaration.
And according to that declaration, it cannot be restricted.
So the principle here is to divide and conquer.
Everyone in this room here is stating that they are acting in the interest of the Ukrainians But has anyone asked the people of Ukraine what it is that they want? The only subject of international law which is which ask the Ukrainians is Russia.
Russia helped us conduct the referendum, which many of you call illegitimate.
But the Zelensky regime didn't even hold elections, and that is truly an act of obvious lawlessness.
And there is a very clear clarification that was handed out by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine about this.
It's dated 15th of May 2014.
Who of those who called Zelensky president of Ukraine have read this clarification from the Constitutional Court? You should by now understand, on the other hand, why Zelensky destroyed the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
The Ukrainians chose Russia knowingly.
And this was not just at the various referenda.
10 million Ukrainian citizens voted for Russia.
They fled Zelensky regime to the territory of the Russian Federation.
This is at the time when Russia, unlike Europe and America, did not try to lure the Ukrainians into it by issuing very generous social packages.
Now, why Russia specifically? Well, because about 80% of people who live in Ukraine are Russian speakers.
This is shown in many sociological surveys of public opinion.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to dwell on those in detail.
But the protection of the Russian language is stated directly in the Constitution of Ukraine.
It's in paragraph three of Article 10.
But on the 22nd of February of 2014, a coup d'etat happened in Ukraine.
And on the 23rd of February, the new government canceled the law on languages and started exerting direct pressure on the Russian language.
Russian language was being actively removed from mass media, from the film industry, and publishing.
And discriminatory quotas were introduced at the level of a law in 2016.
According to the law on education of 2017, More than 4,000 schools changed from Russian to Ukrainian.
In 2019, a few days before stepping down, Poshenko signed his own version of the law on languages.
And the new President Zelensky supported this law, despite the fact that its provisions ran counter to the campaign promises by Zelensky himself.
This law essentially bans Russian in educational institutions such as kindergarten schools and higher learning institutions.
A position of a special ombudsman on languages was introduced.
In Ukraine, this office is called Sprehinfua.
And the function of that Fra is fining for the use of the Russian language in a public space.
And you are being fine if you use the Russian language in everyday activities, and in shops, in restaurants, in hairdresser salons.
And even at the parliamentary level, there was real real pressure.
The Supre Rada turns off the microphones when the members of the Rada address their people in their own language in Russian.
The goal of this policy was formulated by the Secretary of the National Security Council of the Zelensky regime.
Um, his name is Alexei Danilov, and he stated that the Russian language in Ukraine has to disappear.
Zelensky regime, which usurped authorities in Ukraine organized a terror system which punishes dissent.
My own criminal case under Article 430 61 I can run into ten years jail with my property being confiscated.
The publication in 2018 of a chart in a Facebook which show the demographic trends before and after independence.
Before independence, the number of people would grow by on average, 500,000 people per year.
After independence, it went down.
For example, in 2021, before the large scale war, the population of Ukraine diminished by 1.2 million people.
And I placed those charts against the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine and the red and blue flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, just to make it clearer.
And this is a publication that can now, as a result of which I can be jailed for up to ten years.
The criminal code was also added too with the articles which provide for punishment for criticism of Zelensky and his accomplices.
Article 46 0.2, for example, according to this article, the criticism of crimes of corruption, the criticism of human rights violations.
All of this is being considered as justifying the Russian aggression.
Let me just give you some examples as an illustration.
So in Nero Petro Oblast was jailed because he criticized Zelensky for his Bandera propaganda.
Let me recall here that in 1935, Poland sentenced Bandera to life imprisonment for terrorism.
He is currently the official hero in Zelensky's Ukraine.
Someone in Vskyv Oblast was sentenced for likes guilt.
And there are tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of such cases.
I am convinced that this statement of mine I'm making now will also be used as proof of my guilt in the criminal proceedings against me, of my guilt, which was politically motivated that was started against me by the Zelensky regime.
This is true fascism.
This is open terror.
Do you understand this I wonder when you support Zelensky? When you give him and his representatives a platform to speak.
Lead to space.
Well, the West talks about the other values, but how do you convey them? A famous Russian scientist, the founder of the civilization approach, Nikolai Danilevsky in 1969, has stated or in 18 69 stated already that the West is moving its civilization forward by colonizing and depriving the conquered people of their individuality.
In practice, this leads to a total destruction of some peoples by others.
For example, this was done by the English colonizers in North America where head hunters teams were organized.
The colonial administration paid them poor scalp of a killed Indian, and the price was six shillings.
Entire tribes were exterminated down to the last person.
Similarly, Western civilizing people were acting in on other continents as well.
I think the representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who became a victim of the Belgian monarchy understands very well what I am referring to.
Let me recall here that in the spring of 2014, the representatives of the regime, which took over the power bodies in Ukraine as a result of a coup d'etat also similarly announced a reward for killing the Russian speaking people in the southeast of the country.
They weren't even considered to be human.
Insulting epithets were used against them, for example, the Colorados bringing people to the level of a pass the Colorado Beetle.
And squashing a Colorado Beetle is always a useful and good thing to do.
And Russia became the protector of these people, despite the fact that Germany, Poland, and France should have stood up to protect them.
Those countries who in February 2014 guaranteed abiding by the agreements between the legal president of Ukraine and the participants in the Maidan coup.
I'd like to use this opportunity and ask the representative of France whether or not they feel any guilt.
You state who had the duty to interfere, you had undertaken this obligation upon yourself.
But you allowed the coup d'etat to take place.
And I wonder whether you feel guilty because in the fall of 2022, 12 people were killed in Donetsk at a public transport stop using your means.
Russia was the only one that stood in the path of genocide trying to prevent it.
And as a Ukrainian, I thank Russia for the protection.
And thanks to that protection for the freedom and life that was preserved because of that.
The last sentence that I would like to send, I'd like to say Ukrainian kv.
Specs of Pneumonia.
Thank you for your attention.
We thank Alexander for his emotional statement.
We understand why you wanted to tell the council members all these accounts of what you've endured and Ukrainians endured through these years.
Colleagues, the situation of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine has been steadily deteriorating since 2014.
The scale of the abuses and the intensity of the rage with which the Kyiv regime is attempting to eradicate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is unprecedented.
Clergy have been subjected to criminal persecution, searches, arrests, while churches and monasteries have been raided and denied access to their places of worship.
This is not merely a campaign against an undesirable confession, but a systematic cleansing of the political, public, and spiritual spheres.
At this point, we'd like to show you again a short video on church.
G.
In spring 2023, Ukrainian nationalists, supported by the police captured the oldest orthodox monastery in Ukraine, they Peters Slava.
The monastery's rector was arrested.
The monks who had barricaded themselves in the monastery were denied food and water.
In Kyiv, violating protection of conscience laws in front of the world came the culmination of the church confrontation instigated by Poland in Ukraine almost 300 years before.
Late March 2023, the Ukrainian capital, Orthodox priests and churchgoers tried to protect Kyiv Vsslavra their main shrine.
Pups were ejected from Ky Pslavra on the Ukrainian authorities orders.
Historically, the monastery came under the Moscow patriarch's jurisdiction.
Ran.
Odin war.
In December 2022, Zelensky proclaimed there should be no religious communities affiliated with Russia in Ukraine.
Deputies in the Ukrainian Parliament immediately drafted a bill to ban the UOC outright.
Churches were seized and congregation members were beaten up.
Tear gas was sprayed inside churches, icons were set on fire, and priests were arrested.
To provide a more in depth analysis of the persecution facing the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, I would like to introduce Mr.
Roslan Klinchuk, our next briefer.
He's an Orthodox journalist and publicist from Ukraine, who was forced to flee to Russia to escape religious persecution at the hands of Ukrainian authorities.
Rosn, you have the floor.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for giving me the floor and for the opportunity to inform the global community from this rostrum.
I was born in Ivana Frankosk Oblast in Leyva, in Noransk District.
I studied in Kyiv.
In 2019, I started working as a journalist in the Information Agency, the Union of Orthodox journalists, and for the Perv Kacatski Television Channel.
In these media organizations, I worked for three years.
The information that I want to share with you is based on my experience of life in Ukraine and of my experience working in the media.
Given my professional duties, I regularly covered events linked to conflict surrounding the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
I repeatedly spoke to clergy and parishioners whose parishes or who personally had been attacked, including by right wing radical groups.
Hatred for Orthodox Christians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been going on for a long time.
Each year, there has been an intensification in an anti church propaganda, including in the media.
As a result of this, there has inevitably been a worsening of the existing schism between the church in Ukraine.
The peak of this narrative can be located in the events of December 2018 and the so called unifying cathedral as a result of which the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was created.
Through the efforts of the authorities.
This cathedral did not manage to unify anyone because literally two months after the artificial union, there was a a division that took place between the leading figures of the Sismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine, between Epiphany Duma and Filret Densennka.
And the entities that allegedly unified the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Orthoephls Orthodox Church still exist separately.
As a result, Filet accused Epiphany of lying and he put his so called Kyiv Patriarchate back together again.
But the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine gave the authorities the opportunity to pit the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Othoox Church against one another, calling the latter an alien and unnecessary church.
At the same time, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine were beating and maiming orthodox parishioners and the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Illegally moving Ukrainian Orthodox churches into the property of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine forcibly seizing them in cities and in villages.
I, as a journalist and as a parishioner, a believing a faithful, a believing person, find it most painful that no one was able to help us.
We were not able to turn to the law enforcement authorities because often they not only did nothing, but they also were on the side of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
We, the journalists defending the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, were called defenders of the Moscow popes and of the Moscow Church in order to besmirch the church and to try and prove that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was managed, as it were, from Russia.
And that together with its parishioners or through them, it was trying to impose the Russian world and Russian culture.
That's even though the Ukrainian Orthodox Church never opposed the official stance of the Ukrainian authorities.
Based on my experience of speaking to the clergy of the church and the parishioners, I've concluded that the seizing of Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches takes place according to the two following ways.
By falsifying documents, And also by holding assemblies of territorial communities instead of religious parishes.
And now, I would like to provide more detailed information about some cases of Ukrainian Orthodox churches being seized.
I have had an opportunity to talk to witnesses and participants in these seizures personally.
Since, as I already said, that was part of my professional duties.
For example, in February 2019, together with a group of journalists, I spoke to Proto as Stephan Balan, who was the rector of the transfiguration Church in Gzdchn in Isbdovsk District of Ana Pol Oblast.
On the 3rd of February 2019, there was an attack that took place.
People burst into the church.
They shouted obscenities.
They described the clergy as the FSB church or rotten Roskis.
During the clashes, as Proteas Stephan said, He was taken by the head and beaten.
Medical workers said that there were bruises all over his body, his head, his chest, his arms.
In addition to the rector during the attack on the church, at the hands of the attackers, several women were also injured.
After the attack, the transfiguration church was sealed.
However, the representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine hid it and they began to hold services.
They broke the seal and started to hold services there.
Many faithful and clergy of the Ukrainian Othoox Church and people visiting them and defending them.
Faced serious consequences, including ones that were a threat to their life.
For example, in Vrovina in Ivana Frankovs Oblast, where I'm from, representatives of the territorial defense abducted Father Tito Dachk.
As Father Tita later reported, He was detained by force in order to force him to transfer the property of the Holy Trinitary monastery Dunsky to the ownership of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
On the 16th of March 2022, territorial defense forces carried out an attack on the rector of the church in Ivanov, in tmyir Oblast at the Archimandrite Lavra.
The fate of the priest of the priest of the Lav remains unknown to this day.
Most likely he was killed.
I also know about other cases of abductions, beatings and various forms of physical exactions against the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
With my own eyes, I saw tens and hundreds of parishioners and clergymen beaten.
All of this took place against journalists as well that published information about attacks on Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches and the lawlessness that was prevailing there.
I also didn't manage to avoid this persecution.
Starting with March 2022, representatives of the territorial defense threatened me with death, and they turned up at my home.
For that reason, I was forced to leave Ukraine.
And my fears were justified.
Currently, in Ukraine, five criminal cases have been launched against me in Ukraine.
In March 2024, Ukrainian security services officers came to visit my grandmother.
At the time, she was 76-years-old.
Of course, she was terrified to see armed people in masks with machine guns.
She was afraid that they would force her out of the home that she had built together with my grandfather.
And I, of course, felt helpless because I could do nothing to help and protect her.
Ladies and gentlemen, I could go on at length listing the lawless act of the Ukrainian authorities.
I could recall the anti church law that was adopted that allows the parishes of the UOC to have their legal registration denied them.
I could talk about the numerous cases of clergymen being mobilized.
Even though the authorities know very well that according to the canons of the church, clergymen do not have the right to take up arms.
But the UOC clergy were in this way forced to move over to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
I could mention the metropolitan of the Holy Arseny Jakovnka, the Sartre Metropolitan Arceny Jakovinka, who for almost two years was illegally kept in pretrial investigative isolation.
But I would like to make a personal request to you, particularly to those ambassadors and representatives whose governments are sponsoring the current Ukrainian authorities with weapons and money.
Please convey to your governments and to your presidents The truth that they are not supporting a young democracy, but rather a brutal regime, which is killing and maiming its own citizens only because they adhew to the faith of their fathers.
The blood and tears of the clergy and the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are on the hands of those that defend the Ukrainian regime.
God sees and his justice will be done.
Thank you very much for your attention.
I thank ruslan for your insightful testimony.
And our last but not least guest today is Russian journalist and documentary filmmaker Yukrina Akhava, who will discuss the consequences of Kyiv's crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
She will report on what she saw with her own eyes and what her interlocutors share.
For anyone interested in understanding this topic, I recommend watching Yutria's documentary named Your Will, which is about destroyed holicides and the unbreakable spirit of Donbas.
The video will be available via QR code in the materials from our meeting.
These are real people and real tragedies.
Yquitria, the floor is yours.
Spence.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a great honor for me to have the opportunity to bring you some facts and data that I gathered during my work as a special correspondent and documentary filmmaker on the territories of the Donetsk Republic, Luganskeop's Republic and Zaïre.
Everything that I'm going to tell you is something I saw personally.
I spoke to eyewitnesses and I took photo and video In November 2022, I began to work as a war correspondent the territory of Zapojy Oblast.
First thing I found out about was in Melipol in December 2021, in the city with the support of the current administration, a Dansov fest was held.
This is an event to involve young people in neo Nazi organizations in honor of Dansov.
Dansov is a Ukrainian nationalist author who honors Banda honored by Bandaes alongside Bandera himself.
According to his work, a person if they're Ukrainian, Bulgarian, an Englishman, or from any country in the world, they can become a Ukrainian nationalist.
Essentially any citizen of the world that signs on to hate Russians can stand in the ranks of the new neo Ukrainian Nazi Russo.
He essentially adapted the Austrian developments of Ukrainian nationalism.
In honor of that person, the Ukrainian Greco Catholic Church, with the support of the authorities and a number of extremist organizations and organized nationalist festivals and that was only in Mlipo.
In December 2022, I came across a brochure called Vieri Believe That was written by some Ivan Altnsky.
This literature is full of gross extrapolations of religious ideas onto historic facts.
This and similar brochures were circulated en masse by the Ukrainian Greeko Catholic Church and affiliated organizations before 2022 on the territory of Zappos.
Specifically, this brochure was published in 1990.
On the cover Ukraine includes Voronyv and Rostov Oblast, Krasnedar and Bresk Oblast in Belarus.
And this is reminiscent of the maps that Russian officers who were prisoners of the Austrians and German officers during the First World War found when they were planning to create a vassal state of Ukraine under the protectorate of Austria Hungary.
Over the last hundred years, the plans haven't changed a great deal.
Does this not look like impingement on the territorial integrity of Russia, I ask you.
A staff member of the Department for working with religious organizations gave me data about a sect called Slavony, the Word of life.
The pastor of this sect in February and March 2022, was in hiding for three weeks and when he was detained, he was found to have three American passports.
Two of them had one name and a third had a different name, but all of the passports were genuine.
They weren't fake.
And he was treated very well.
He was allowed to leave the country.
In 2023 in Zapooj, the terror began on the 3rd of January at 4:00 A.M.
One of the city hospitals in Tokmk was shelled.
F Hamars missiles were launched and they damaged a part of the building, as well as the maternity and pediatrics wards.
People were killed and wounded and the number of casualties is higher, and it's still not being properly established.
As a special correspondent, I was working directly on the scene of the terrorist attack, and the information can be found online.
On the 4th of January, Civilian infrastructure in Vasilev around midday, was hit by six hams of four missiles at a time and two subsequently.
There were blast ammunition, frag, ammunition, the Ukrainian armed forces waited for people to arrive before they launched the second wave.
As a result, 24 people were injured and four were killed.
All of this is photographed and videoed and I worked as a stringer and so I was directly on the scene, and this can be found online as well.
Since 2014 in Donbas and also in Zapoja and Hassan Oblast, according to various data, around 300 churches have been damaged and many of them were almost destroyed, entirely destroyed, and there is shrapnel and damage everywhere.
I directly witnessed attacks on churches of the Canonical Orthodox Church, which I covered when I was working on the documentary film Thy Will.
The Nikolay monastery near Ugledar was something I saw in 2024 at the time, after shelling from the Ukrainian armed forces, seven people were killed, including monks and workers.
But there wasn't any work going on there.
The shells were sticking out of the ground and out of trees.
There was shrapnel everywhere.
Agricultural machinery was destroyed.
Holes have been blown in walls and frescoes with the faces of saints on them.
The monks said that they were burying people directly in the monastery, saying that if one of us is killed in a shelling, then at least we can bury them and saves anyone having to go outside again.
The Novisate Afarnasi showed us where another person died.
The monks lived and conducted services in the rubble of the church without electricity or water, and all of their supplies were provided by volunteers.
The monastery of the icon of the Holy Mother regard the humility in Blaygorda near Liiansk.
The Rector, Mother Superior Catherina tell us about the atrocities that were committed and by other AFU units as well as the Azov Brigade, who repeatedly they shot people, they conducted mock trials, they abused people.
And so one nun who didn't speak Ukrainian, she hit a woman and she forced her to be quiet.
The nun also witnessed the drugs that the Ukrainian battalions had, and the Neo Nazis were using these drugs and then committing atrocities.
The nun sister, Katerina was injured herself during Ukrainian shelling and now she can't really walk by herself.
The nun's son, died during Ukrainian shelling.
In recent years, at the hands of the Kyiv regime, almost everyone she knew has died.
Currently, of the 13 residents, only five are left.
Two of them have had heart failure and some have been forced to leave the monastery in fear.
The Church of Ignaty Abanchnv of Indanysk, the Rk, Aleksandermahoov, for many years of war, did not leave.
The city, conducted services there.
The shelling did not end even during my visit.
You could see the shrapnel and the holes that had been blown in the walls.
The area around it was covered with butterfly mines, and the Ukrainian armed forces were hitting it with drones and there were mines in the cemetery.
Targeted strike destroyed the school, the walls and the ceiling of that, and Father Alexander and his assistant were repeatedly shelled.
The reconstruction work was proceeding slowly, and Ukrainian attacks continued.
There's no water in the town at all.
The Church of St.
John of Kronstadt in Donetsk and Trudosk now.
This is unique because even during the worst shelling, services continued.
Only part of it has now been rebuilt.
There is shelling everywhere.
The bulk of the building has been destroyed.
On the walls are still standing.
Father Aleksander is holding services with a small attistance They feel abandoned, but at least they can pray.
And despite the thst of their life, people are coming to the church.
And they're coming from different parts of the country.
In Avtvka, the church of Nikola St.
Nicholas.
The church was destroyed by the Ukrainian armed forces when they were attacking from the city.
The Church of Archangel Michael was severely damaged and Andre did not leave the service during the hostilities, even when the other service personnel had left Avtyvk at the time of my meeting.
He couldn't hear very well the day before the UAF had attacked the church and reconstruction work is currently underway.
Returning to Kirska, I spoke to Ana who lived in a five story residential building.
She was trying to help the surviving citizens.
The school where she worked had been totally destroyed.
The building where she lived had been destroyed in a targeted strike.
A woman died, and the rubble had not yet been fully cleared.
One of Marina's others neighbors died in a UAF strike.
And there's no water electricity at all.
In Lugansk in Bahmut District, the intercession Mother of God Church, we met with the father there.
His home had been destroyed.
He was deprived of any property.
He lived in the church.
He was trying to organize a garden, and there was constant shelling of the church.
The Cupola was destroyed through a direct attack.
The walls were damaged.
Father Nikolai was, um, The word Ukrainian had been crossed out on the sign of the church.
He was being accused of supporting Moscow, the father called the UAF offer.
But for 25 years, Irina had been helping around the church.
Her home was destroyed for no reason, and her son was killed by UA forces just for leaving the house.
In 2025, the Cupola of the Bogrod church was destroyed and people tried to put it back together.
The church's yard was hit by UAF shelling.
Drones attacked the workers who were working to put it back together.
Over the last three months.
According to data from local residents, at least 15 civilians have been killed.
On the 10th of February 2026, a Ukrainian drone attack on a funeral procession killed a well known hero of my film, the rector of the Assumption Church at Father Sergei Kakin, and that was during the procession.
The drone was clearly waiting for when the father would be there.
As a result, six people were injured and Father Sergei died.
The ya regime is liquidating the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Currently, two epries of the Ukrainian Othoox Church have been liquidated in Lolov and Ivana Vnkovsk.
Almost all of the churches have been transferred not to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but to the Greco Catholic Church of Ukraine.
I've seen traces of this traces on the Novorosya roadway also being shelled by drones of Ukrainian armed forces.
Aimov village in Zapoia where a large number of citizens living, primarily old people and mothers with children.
There are no soldiers in this town.
A daily attacked by Ukrainian drains.
This town is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
This is far from all of the evidence, and I could go on, but the time of my briefing is up.
Thank you for your attention.
I hope you were able to hear me.
I thank Queta for your comprehensive testimony, and I'm sure you have a lot to add, and we call on members of the council to see your documentary.
But now we would like to give the floor to those council members who wish to speak.
And I give the floor to the representative of Pakistan.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Dear Ana.
We take note of the remarks delivered by you in your capacity as the chair.
We also very attentively heard the sobering briefings and testimonies by the briefers.
Pakistan has consistently expressed its concerns on the conflict in Ukraine and its consequences in the region and beyond.
It is deplorable that the recent past has seen an escalation in hostilities, compounding misery for the civilian population, which continues to bear a disproportionate brunt from the ongoing conflict.
From the outset, Pakistan's position has been underpinned by our unwavering conviction in the primacy of dialogue and diplomacy for the peaceful settlement of this conflict.
We reiterate our call for bringing this conflict to an end at the earliest and for a just and lasting settlement consistent with the UN charter, international law, and relevant multilateral agreements acceptable to all relevant parties and corresponding to the security interests of all sides.
Madam Chair, a pluralistic society with vibrant mosaic of faiths, culture, and customs is a source of collective enrichment.
Our shared future hinges on the establishment of a framework where diverse beliefs and traditions can coexist peacefully and converse without fear.
My delegation has consistently supported this cause.
Not long ago, Pakistan, along with the Philippines, tabled a resolution in the General Assembly on the promotion of inter religious and intercultural dialogue, understanding and cooperation for peace, which was adopted unanimously.
We remain convinced that promoting peace requires collective approaches that embrace diversity and inclusivity and safeguard all fundamental rights and freedoms.
I thank you very much.
I thank Representative of Pakistan, D Osman, for his statement, and now give the floor to the Representative of Colombia.
Senora Presta.
President, we thank the Russian Federation for organizing this meeting and the briefers for their briefings.
As a member of the United Nations and as a non permanent member of the Security Council, Colombia shares the responsibility to keep at the center of our deliberations the protection of life, human dignity, and the pursuit of lasting sustainable and long term peace.
Therefore, each space for dialogue is an opportunity to reaffirm those principles to promote respect for international law and international humanitarian law and to explore paths that can help reduce the suffering of the civilian population.
Precisely because our primary goal is to protect people, we cannot be indifferent to the recent developments in the conflict.
The intensification of hostilities and the increase in attacks against densely populated areas continues to have devastating consequences for the civilian population and to worsen the risk of a further escalation.
Colombia recalls, moreover, that international humanitarian law obliges all parties to respect and protect the civilian population and civilian goods.
Madam President, in recent weeks, we have heard repeated announcements of strengthening military capacities and the intensification of operations.
However, experience shows that this conflict does not have a military solution.
What is needed are clear signs of political will by the parties involved to stop the hostilities and to establish a compromise for the pursuit of a negotiated solution.
In that regard, we must support and strengthen all efforts that contribute to that aim.
My delegation reiterates the call to stop the violence through an immediate verifiable cease fire accompanied by effective monitoring mechanisms that can help protect facilitate humanitarian access and create the necessary conditions for a sustained and constructive dialogue process.
To conclude, I would like to underscore that building a lasting peace requires continuous efforts to overcome existing divisions, to generate trust among the parties, and to establish conditions that will allow all affected communities to live in security, dignity and respect with full recognition for their rights and in accordance with the charter of the United Nations international law and international humanitarian law.
Thank you very much.
I thank the representative of Colombia for her statement, and I give the floor to the representative of China.
Chair, I thank the Russian Federation for organizing this area formula meeting and thank the four briefers for their briefings.
The current situation around the Ukraine issue is deeply concerning.
Fighting continues on the ground, showing a perilous trend of escalation and expansion.
This not only takes a heavy toll on civilians, but also complicates the path towards peace talks.
Tina condemns any attacks against innocent civilians.
We urge the parties concerned to exercise calm and restraint, earnestly comply with international humanitarian law, refrain from any actions that put civilians in harm's way or make the situation worse, protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, make every effort to de escalate tensions and create conditions for an early ceasefire and cessation of hostilities.
It takes more than one cold day for the river to freeze three feet deep.
The situation in Ukraine did not reach this point overnight, and its causes are complex and multifaceted.
The briefings just now highlighted some of the issues that merit serious attention and require a comprehensive solution.
China supports all efforts dedicated to peace.
We hope that relevant parties will continue engagement, demonstrate political will, resume dialogue and negotiations, and address each other's security concerns, eliminate the root causes of the conflict based on full adherence to the principles of the UN charter, and work towards a comprehensive, lasting and binding peace agreement.
Chair, China has consistently maintained an objective and impartial position on the Ukraine issue, guided by the four shots proposed by the President Xi Jinping.
We maintain communication and contact with all parties, including Russia and Ukraine and actively work in our own way to facilitate peace talks and promote a political settlement.
China will continue to play a constructive role in the political settlement of this crisis.
Thank you.
I thank the representative of China for his statement, and I give the floor to the representative of Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
We thank the Russian Federation for organizing this meeting, and we also thank all of the participants for the information they provided.
This meeting comes at a pivotal point where millions of civilians are deepening the inserted.
The events that we saw show us how complex the crisis is and the diversity of perception surrounding its origin, development, and its potential settlement.
The plurality of this should not make our dialogue impossible.
We can have different viewpoints, but peace will only arrive when each party accepts so that their concerns should be heard with responsibility and good faith.
That is precisely here that diplomacy comes into force by bringing what seems to be irreconcilable, potentially.
We are told that when dialogue stops, it's weapons which take up.
When this happens and it's very difficult to bring peace back.
In this regard, the DRC would like to say that we remain convinced that it's still possible and that the Security Council and the international community should preserve this space where we're looking for a lasting solution.
Because peace cannot be decreed, it comes out of painstaking consultations for a greater good, the agreement and concord between peoples.
Madam Chair, there's one reality that we must all accept.
Whatever the legitimacy of the various reasons underlying this crisis, the civilian population are the ones which continue paying the heaviest price.
Each day of the war increases human suffering and brings farther away from us the prospect of peace.
Beyond all of the other considerations, we have men, women, and children who want to live in security and dignity.
We therefore reaffirm our attachment to the charter principles, respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, and international law, and international humanitarian law.
It is on these principles that our collective action is built for peace which would be lasting and acceptable to all.
We think that no military approach alone will bring a lasting resolution to the crisis.
It is true that weapons can change the balance of forces, but they do not change the history or memory of peoples or fractures that are deepening, nor can they build trust or meet the concerns of the parties.
And that is for that reason that the DRC continues thinking that only an open, sincere, and inclusive dialogue in good faith will allow us to go after the root causes of the conflict, meet the concerns of the parties, and allow us to arrive at lasting peace.
It is in this spirit that we reiterate our appeal for a cease fire, protection of civilians, and the return to diplomacy.
It is when the positions are very far apart that diplomacy comes into play.
It is the only place where we can bring divergencies together and bring trust gradually back and have just peace, have it rebuilt.
We will continue protecting this viewpoint.
We will be faithful to it.
We'll be faithful to the UN charter for the purposes of protecting international peace and security.
Thank you.
I thank Representative of Democratic Republic of the Congo for his statement, and I give the floor to the Representative of Panama.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
We take note of the information shared and the testimonies provided by the briefers.
The Aa formula that brings us here today highlights in the concept note the subject of the root causes of the invasion of Ukraine, including human rights and the persecution faced by some peoples because of their freedom of religion, expression, or linguistic discrimination.
In that regard, we reaffirm our conviction that no difference of religion or belief justifies the persecution of persons, nor can it serve as a basis for sustaining or legitimizing a war in any way.
As we have said on repeated occasions, lasting peace, which within what we can do, based on the fact that we have a voice on this council, we encourage can only be built with respect for dignity, tolerance, and the recognition that diversity of beliefs, religions, among other things, enriches our societies instead of jeopardizing threatening them.
Chair, more than four years have passed since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine.
During this time, the conflict has not only continued, it has intensified in a worrying cycle of violence, leaving unbearable figures of people killed and wounded as well as millions of people displaced.
The war has gone beyond the battlefield and continues to affect the civilian population through attacks against residential areas and other essential infrastructure.
These actions highlight the Vital need for the parties to fully respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and that they adopt all necessary measures to protect the civilian population.
Human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law are unacceptable in any conflict, regardless of the circumstances or the parties involved.
Any complaint should be investigated independently, impartially, and in a way that is rooted in properly verified information with the aim of guaranteeing accountability strictly in accordance with international law.
This war must end now.
Quite frankly, it should have ended a long time ago.
Panama reiterates once again that the parties must urgently comply with international humanitarian law and with genuine political will move towards an immediate ceasefire that will lay the groundwork for a just and sustainable peace.
No military solution can replace dialogue, nor can it offer a lasting peace.
Thank you very much.
I thank the representative of Panama for her statement and I give the floor to the representative of Somalia.
Madam Chair, I thank the Russian Federation for convening this meeting.
We also thank the previous for their presentations.
Understanding the fundamental causes of any conflict is essential in establishing a solid and enduring peace.
To achieve a lasting and sustainable settlement is crucial to address the underlying factors.
The protection of all civilians and the preservation of their fundamental rights are non negotiable obligations enshrined in international human rights and humanitarian law.
We note actions that restrict fundamental rights or deepen social divisions can exacerbate tensions and diminish the prospects for sustainable peace.
My delegation emphasizes the importance of upholding international law and human rights principles in all circumstances.
Ensuring equal protection and fostering mutual respect among all affected populations are vital tools for preventing further polarization and building the confidence necessary for future dialogue.
Madam Chair, we remain convinced that there is no military solution to the conflict in Ukraine.
Diplomacy, constructive engagement, and open journals of communication are the only viable means of bringing this crisis to an end.
We urge all parties to prioritize de escalation, exercise restraint, and commit to an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire.
Every opportunity for peace must be seized and built upon.
The international community must continue to encourage and support initiatives that can lay the groundwork for a constructive path towards a cessation of hostilities and a shared vision of common security.
In conclusion, Madam Chair, we reiterate our call for de escalation, renewed diplomatic engagement, and the birthsit of a negotiated lasting peace in Ukraine and beyond.
We stand ready to work with the council members to support all genuine efforts towards diplomacy aimed at achieving a just and durable resolution.
Thank you very much.
I thank the representative of Somalia for his statement, and I give the floor to the representative of Bahrain.
Sun de Risa.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I would like to thank the participants.
And we are expecting an open discussion here.
My country is of the view that the respect for cultures, ethnicities and the value of coexistence is the underpinning of security and stability.
We think that consistent communities will only happen once we've strengthened the culture of dialogue and rejected hate and once we strengthened mutual respect amongst peoples under the charter and international law.
My country in this regard, would like to reiterate the following.
We need to promote the values of coexistence between cultures and civilizations for communities, disabilities, and for regional and international peace and security.
Madam Chair, my country reiterates its firm position in favor of dialogue and diplomacy so as to stop the Russia Ukrainian war and to do this multilateral action and the various opportunities and arrived at a lasting peaceful solution which takes into account the concerns of all parties and preserves the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries and allows for human losses, including children to Ed under the Charter and international law and the relevant UN resolutions.
To conclude, I would like to say that my country, the Kingdom of Bahrain, is ready to promote any and all initiatives so as to lessen the suffering and increase trust between parties for the future stability, peace and prosperity on the European continent and everywhere in the world, I thank you.
I thank the representative of Bahrain for her statement, and I give the floor to the representative of Liberia.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Liberia thanks the conveners for the opportunity to take the floor and has taken note of the perspectives presented this morning.
This discussion arrives at a moment when explanations for this war compete almost as fiercely as the weapons on the battlefield.
Yet, amid the contest of narratives, one fact remains stubbornly immune to politics.
Civilians continue to die.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission, at least 1396 civilians were killed and 7,978 injured in the first six months of this year alone.
The highest toll for NSS period since 2022, and 37% higher than a year ago.
Women, children, older persons, and persons with disability continue to carry a burden that none of them voted for and none of them can escape.
The conveners have drawn attention to concerns relating to Russian speaking communities, religious freedom, and the Russian and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Where credible allegations exist, they deserve impartial investigation.
Human rights cannot be selective.
Freedom of religion or belief, and the protection of minorities must be upheld for all communities everywhere and on all sides.
Protections owed to civilians must never become casualties of war.
Cities continue to be struck.
Homes continue to collapse.
Families continue to flee.
Humanitarian needs continue to grow.
The sufferings produced by this war cannot be viewed only through one window while drawing the curtains over every other.
Liberia comes to this discussion with the memory of its own conflict.
We learned a difficult lesson.
Wars often begin with certainty but end with exhaustion.
The battlefield may determine positions, but it really determines peace.
As one author said, never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified is not a crime.
Today, the consequences of this war extend far beyond Europe.
Food security, fertilizer supplies, energy prices, and shipping costs continue to weigh on vulnerable economies across Africa and the wider global south.
Millions of people who have never seen Kyiv or Moscow nevertheless pay a daily tax imposed by this conflict.
Madam Chair, Perhaps the most tragic future of war is that every side eventually claim to act for the people while the people themselves become the principal casualties.
Liberia therefore reiterates its consistent position for a support, comprehensive, and lasting peace.
I thank you.
I thank the representative of Liberia for his statement, and I give the floor to the representative of the United States.
Chair, I note the remarks of the briefers.
Unfortunately, today's meeting does not bring us closer to an immediate cease fire or a durable resolution of the Russia Ukraine War.
Millions have suffered as a result of this war with civilians bearing the brunt of the violence.
The killing needs to stop.
The war must end.
Only good faith negotiation will end it.
And so we urge Russia to immediately return to the negotiating table.
President Trump will help make a deal if a deal can be made, but it takes both sides.
Debates about the cause of war will not stop the killing.
Only a true willingness to find a solution will save lives.
I thank you.
I thank the representative of the United States for his statement and I give the floor to the representative of France.
La France France deplores Russia's new attempt to divert the attention of the Security Council by reversing responsibility.
We regret that this meeting is once again being used to promote a false narrative, to feed the disinformation campaign and serve Russian propaganda rather than contributing to the peace efforts that France, Ukraine, and our international partners are constantly calling for.
Let us re establish the facts known to all.
Directly involved in the conflict since 2014, Russia took a new step on 24 February 2022 by launching a war of aggression against Ukraine in flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter.
This aggression has been condemned on multiple occasions by the United Nations General Assembly by a very large majority.
Since then, Russia has continued to violate the charter, international law, and international humanitarian law in Ukraine.
According to the concept note, which we have read carefully to fully understand the purpose of this meeting, Russia wishes to provide impartial firsthand information regarding human rights violations that it attributes to Ukraine.
Well, Ukraine does allow the competent United Nations bodies to have free access to the territory controls unlike Russia.
Therefore, it seems that a good way to provide impartial and firsthand information to member states would be for Russia to fully allow the relevant United Nations bodies access to the Ukrainian territories illegally occupied by the Russian Federation, as well as to the Russian national territory in order to allow them to investigate the situation, including the dramatic situation in the places where Ukrainian prisoners of war are being held.
As Russia continues its large scale missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with a devastating toll on civilians and the religious and cultural heritage of Ukraine, France reaffirms its unwavering support for Ukraine.
The G seven summit in Apjan and then the NATO summit in Ankara confirmed our shared determination to continue our support to Ukraine, which defends its freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity, in which has the right to defend itself against Russian aggression.
The coalition of the Willing Summit in Paris on July 13th illustrated our commitment to creating the conditions for just and lasting peace in Ukraine, including by working on robust security guarantees.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, supported by the vast majority of member states, including Ukraine has called for a complete, immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
It is time for Russia to heed these calls, stop its irresponsible escalation, and seriously engage in negotiations.
I thank you.
I thank the representative of France for his statement and give the floor to the representative of Greece.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
This meeting convened amidst Russia's ongo aggression against Ukraine comes a mere few days after the release of the latest UN report detailing verified Ukrainian civilian casualties.
The statistics are hurrying, with June being the bloodiest month since April 2022, at the start of the full scale invasion.
Civilian casualties now exceed 65,000 people, with almost 3,800 being children.
These numbers are impossible to ignore or brush over.
Against this backdrop, we would like to make three points.
First, the human cost of the war in Ukraine continues to be devastating.
Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict.
More than half of the country's energy infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed in an attempt to erode civilian morale and force Ukraine into capitulation.
This pattern of attacks against Ukrainian cities is quite evident and has been escalating during recent months.
International humanitarian law prohibits deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian objects and regulates warfare through respect of the principles of distinction, proportionality, precaution and military necessity.
These attacks should cease immediately.
Regarding human rights, we are reminded of this latest report by the OHCHR, which documents systematic violations against Ukrainian prisoners of war and resident of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
We call on Russia to comply with its respective obligations.
Second, every allegation of violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, irrespective of the alleged perpetrator, must be thoroughly, independently, and impartly investigated, and those responsible must be held accountable.
International law applies equally to all and credible accountability requires independent judicial and investigative mechanisms operating in accordance with due process and established international standards.
We therefore continue to support the work of the relevant UN institutions such as the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, but also the independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine and other international mechanisms mandated to establish the facts and preserve evidence.
We call on Russia to cooperate with them and to facilitate their access, including to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and the Russian areas affected by hostilities.
Third, and as a matter of priority, Greece, along with the vast majority of the international community and the Secretary-General of the United Nations has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire to create the grounds for dialogue and diplomacy to resume.
We reiterate this call today, as well as our firm conviction that the peace settlement can only be just and lasting when upholding international law and the principles of the UN Charter.
I thank you.
I thank Representative of Greece for his statement, and I give the floor to the representative of Denmark.
Madam Chair, you have all witnessed Russia's performative outrage in recent Security Council meetings against what it labels, the criminal Kyiv regime, and the warmongering and Russo collective west.
Russia has even called those meetings, which include factual UN briefings on the terrible humanitarian suffering that follows Russia's attack on Ukrainian civilians a waste of time.
Yet today, we've been convened in another Russian attempt to distract, deny, and deflect from its own crimes committed against Ukraine through its unprovoked full scale invasion, now in its fifth year.
It is this attempt, today's IRA meeting that is a cynical abuse of council members time and resources.
Madam Chair, we have heard that Russia is the sole defender of the Orthodox Church, when Russian drones recently nearly burned Ukraine's most sacred site, the 100-year-old monastery of the Keys to the ground.
That the Kremlin is protecting Russian speaking Ukrainians when Moscow's military action has laid waste to the temporary occupied territories in the east and south that were their heartlands.
That Moscow is densifying Kyiv, a phrase that is not only entirely untrue, but that denies the reality that Ukrainians are utterly opposed to being subjugated by Russia once more.
Such blatant disinformation should not normally be dignified with a response, but let me briefly set out some of the facts.
Russia alone is responsible for this war, having invaded its peaceful neighbor in a flagrant breach of the UN charter.
Despite Moscow's attempt to spread disinformation, the overwhelming majority of UN member states took a clear stance in the General Assembly in March 2022, and, indeed, in every vote since.
This matter will also soon be heard by the Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine in the Hague.
The International Criminal Court determined there was sufficient evidence of Russia war crimes in deporting thousands of Ukrainian children for it to issue arrest warrants for Russia's president and Commissioner for Children's Rights.
Russia's consistent grave violations against children has led the Secretary-General to list the Russian armed forces in the last four annual reports on children and armed conflict.
Moreover, systematic and recurrent use of torture and sexual violence by Russian military forces against prisoners of war and civilian detainees have also led to their listing in this year's conflict related sexual violence report.
Russia continues to launch ballistic missiles and long range drone attacks on Ukraine cities night after night after night in blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
Since 2022, it has killed or injured over 65,000 civilians.
Madam Chair, while the facts I've just mentioned do not fit the Kremlin's false narrative, they cannot be ignored.
The real root causes of this terrible scale of death, destruction, and misery being inflicted on Ukraine on a daily basis were Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of the Donbas in 2014, and then its equally illegal full scale invasion in 2022, which continues to this day.
It is beyond high time for Russia to stop this census war, accept the immediate and unconditional cease fire that Ukraine has been offering, and engage in good faith talks to achieve a just and lasting peace in line with the UN charter.
I thank you.
And now I give the floor to the representative of Latvia.
Latvia has grown accustomed to Russia's blatant lies, imaginative interpretation of events, and blame shifting from its own grave violations.
Today is yet another such example.
I would recommend the concept note and the briefings from this event to students is a case study for disinformation, lies, and propaganda.
Let us see how many one can find in every sentence.
However, Russia's actions are very dangerous and reckless.
Russia is spreading lies, then using them as a pretext to start wars, escalate attacks against innocent civilians, and issue new threats against countries.
According to Russian law, a terrorist and an extremist is anyone who dares to speak out.
UN experts have an apt assessment when they condemned, I quote, this deliberate strategy of using extremism and counterterrorism frameworks to dismantle civil society, criminalize and imprison human rights defenders, and target those seeking their support.
End of quote.
This abuse of terminology weakens the fight against actual terrorists and extremists that pose danger to global security and civilians.
It dissolves these definitions into tools for repression.
Currently, 875 organizations and 22,085 individuals have been placed on Russia's list of terrorists of extremists.
This includes political opponents, anti war advocates, human rights defenders, journalists, anti corruption activists, indigenous peoples and minority organizations, and Nobel peace laureates.
Russian authorities use this list not only against their own citizens, a growing number of affected individuals are nationals of their other countries.
In today's stage managed spectacle, Russia promised unbiased and factual information.
Propaganda is not a fact.
Opinion is not a fact.
Unbiased information means full and unimpeded access for the UN system and independent monitors to establish verified facts.
It is the existence of free and independent media.
The concept note argues that Russia's aggression against Ukraine, I quote, will only result in lasting and sustainable settlement when its root causes are addressed and finally eliminated.
Any attempts to downplay them as unimportant are steps in the wrong direction as they serve to prolong the existing state of affairs.
E.
Latvia will not downplay anything.
Russia has not been able to accept the existing state of affairs since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia cannot accept that Ukraine is a free and sovereign state.
For Russia, a lasting and sustainable settlement means the end of territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty of Ukraine.
The wrong direction are the principles enshrined in the UN charter.
This continued imperial Russian mindset is the root cause of the war to be addressed and finally eliminated to achieve a lasting and sustainable settlement.
We call on Russia to stop wasting the Council's time with its bogus claims, propaganda, and agree to a cease fire and meaningfully engage in negotiations for a just and lasting peace.
I thank you.
And now I give the floor to the representative of the United Kingdom.
Thank you.
Colleagues, Russia has brought us here today to discuss a reign of terror against Ukraine, including human rights abuses and breaches of international legal obligations.
In the past month, Russia has launched six mass attacks, including over 588 missiles against Ukrainian cities, many far from the front lines.
In July alone, 169 Ukrainian civilians were killed and over 1,300 were injured.
Russian attacks have caused repeated damage to civilian objects, including Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure, causing excessive harm to civilians.
Total Ukrainian casualties of this water date now exceed 65,000.
The United Nations continues to verify systematic human rights violations by Russia against Ukrainian civilians, most recently in the Secretary-General reports on conflict related sexual violence and children in armed conflict.
This includes the killing and maiming of 753 children attributed to Russian and armed forces, as well as a pattern of sexual violence against detained Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees in the temporarily occupied territories by Russian armed and security forces.
Russia continues to refuse to return over 20,000 forcibly deported Ukrainian children.
Access for UN officials as well as NGOs and humanitarian organizations to civilians in the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine remains severely limited.
It is clear which country is conducting a reign of terror in Ukraine right now.
Russia's mythology about the origins of its aggression in Ukraine may evolve, but the facts on the ground do not.
This war began when Russia launched an illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ukraine alone has the right to choose its security alliances, its political leadership through its democratic elections, and how it exercises its inherent right to self defense in line with international law.
Under President Zelensky, Ukraine has repeatedly committed to a comprehensive cease fire and is ready to engage in serious peace negotiations.
Russia has not.
If Russia wants to improve the lives of all Ukrainians, including Russian speakers, then it should end its war without delay.
Thank you.
Dear colleagues, as we conclude this meeting, I would like to make just a few short observations.
Despite the deepening divisions within Ukrainian society, crimes committed for decades against Russian speaking citizens, Russian Orthodox Church, and all those crimes that are committed against Ukrainian citizens right now through forced mobilization, with the detentions of dissent and et cetera, Kyiv and the Western supporters, as you see, continue to blame Russia and aggressively, very aggressively whitewash Kyiv's dire human rights record.
Today, you have heard in detail from our briefers and seen compelling footage unequivocally highlighting the inhumane nature of Ukrainian authorities which aided and abetted by the collective West unconstitutionally seized power in 2014.
Colleagues, you probably thought that this firsthand evidence that our briefers presented simply cannot be denied.
But it can.
This evidence was denied just a few moments ago by Western countries.
They again, deny it.
They don't want to hear.
They want to silence it.
And the answer is very simple, because if they admitted that, that would become an admission of their own guilt.
Because these crimes, this blood is upon their heads and their hands.
But at the same time, we hope that this subjective information will help you to better understand the root causes of this conflict.
This is crucial because no just and lasting settlement can be achieved without their eradication.
And I want to thank those delegations that talked today about equal respect to cultures, ethnicities, human rights that should be respected towards everyone, that talked about dialogue, about diplomacy, and respect to languages.
Who said that root causes of conflict should be resolved and all civilians should be protected and all people, whatever the language they speak, equal and should be treated equally.
You should be mindful that the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter require universal, impartial, and non selective protection of human rights, regardless of race, sex, language, or religion.
Therefore, it's our collective responsibility to condemn the criminal policies of the Kyiv regime against its own citizens, including the suppression of the rights of the Russian speaking community and canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
We expect a clear and principled response from you regarding violations that we have highlighted during this meeting, as well as an insistence that the fundamental rights of the oppressed are fully restored.
To conclude, I want to thank our briefers.
I see that they really want to respond to what they've just heard and to present the evidence once again.
Unfortunately, we do not have an opportunity for the further discussions due to limitations on time and interpretation, but I want to thank you once again for your testimony.
So now you understand and you even better understand how important it is to do what you are doing to work further on conveying the information about what happened to the people in Ukraine to you yourself.
And we wish you a good luck in all your future endeavors.
Thank you very much for everyone who attended and listened and spoke here.