May 14, 2024
The representative of Ukraine reported that the Russian Federation launched a new offensive on 10 May, targeting the northern Kharkiv region with the immediate aim of taking the city of Vovchansk.
While Ukrainian forces are holding the line to prevent Moscow’s troops from advancing to Kharkiv – the second-largest Ukrainian city — he said that heavy defensive battles are under way and the situation remains extremely dangerous for local civilians.
He added: “Russian forces persist in razing Ukrainian towns to the ground without regard for the local population’s suffering, with Vovchansk becoming the latest victim — akin to Bakhmut or Maryinka.” Detailing numerous attacks committed by “a country that called itself a friend of the UN Charter”, he noted that Ukraine is now “the only country in the world being attacked by ballistic and cruise missiles almost daily”. Major cities have borne the brunt of these assaults, with devastating consequences.
“All the above crimes cannot be committed perpetually,” he stressed, noting that a summit on peace in Ukraine will take place in Switzerland on 15-16 June.
While stating that “we have invited all peace-loving nations, and each nation can really bring peace closer”, he said that — meanwhile — Moscow intensifies its lies about “a so-called peace deal that Ukraine and Russia were allegedly close to in spring 2022”. However, it is the Russian Federation President who has been ruining peace in Ukraine for more than a decade — by occupying Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014, by obstructing the Minsk and Normandy peace processes, by launching a full-scale war of aggression and then by refusing to end it.
Urging nations to attend the peace summit, he said: “The more active the world is now in restoring a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine, the more likely it is that others in the world will not become the victims of similar aggression.”