16 December 2024
Mr. President,
We regard today’s meeting as a desperate attempt by the sponsors and puppeteers of the Kiev regime to keep Ukraine “afloat” as a topic in the Security Council, which happens at a time when most of the international community is obviously losing interest in it. This comes as no surprise – the expired Ukrainian President Zelensky has lately managed to discredit the Ukrainian authorities to such an extent that it is only his accomplices who still dare to express support for the Kiev regime, precisely those who orchestrated and instigated the anti-constitutional coup in February 2014.
We have all had a great opportunity to see the former comedian go to great pains bowing and scraping before the Republicans that won the US elections. In an attempt to make everybody forget that Kiev banked on the Democrats, Zelensky and his associates have been tirelessly traveling across the US and its major satellites with hat at hand, trying to make sure that the new administration will not throw them under the bus.
Yet, Kiev’s officials have sour faces. And it is not because they haven’t managed to get another “license to rule” or because they are receiving signals about an inevitable reduction in military support. The reason why they look so displeased is that they are anticipating an audit into the American funds already spent on Ukraine. As we have repeatedly warned, it is the most frightening scenario for the corrupt Ukrainian authorities.
Essentially, it was recently reconfirmed by the American President-elect’s appointee as head of the FBI, Kash Patel, who intends to “ask Congress to investigate where this money went. The American people should get an answer to this… How can we trust this government when we give such large sums and do not receive reports on what they were spent on?” He also intends to find out whether the Ukrainian president used false security threats to obtain financial assistance from the United States.
It is noteworthy that both Western media and the few remaining independent Ukrainian media outlets are united in their assessment that this audit does not bode well not only for the Ukrainian “supreme” actor, but also for his Democratic accomplices. Not surprisingly, they got nervous: Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was blunt saying that the outgoing administration is going do everything it can in the remaining “to give Ukraine every tool … to strengthen their position on the battlefield…” He clarified that he primarily talked about massive military shipments “so that we’ve spent every dollar that Congress has allocated to us by the time President Biden leaves office.”
Let us recall that we are talking about the “drawdown” of 6.5 billion dollars. However, as Western experts have pointed out, we are not talking about the actual supply of weapons to the Kiev regime – it is virtually impossible to do this in such a short period of time. What we are talking about is the mere “splitting the pot and getting kickbacks,” which the incoming Trump administration intends to stop. We advise everyone to get their popcorn ready, as we are expecting this show to go on. This issue, as well as the issue of Western arms supplies and Western support in to keep the criminal Kiev clique afloat, is something we are going to discuss at a separate meeting, which we have requested for December 20.
Colleagues,
According to a recent Gallup poll, over half of Ukrainians are in favor of ending the conflict as soon as possible, and are ready to accept inevitable territorial concessions. We know how biased Western sociologists are; and therefore, we have every reason to believe that the real figure is much higher. The real sentiment in Ukrainian society manifests itself in facts that more than one hundred thousand people have deserted and the absolute majority of Ukrainians are unwilling to fight for the inhumane corrupt regime that has usurped power in Ukraine in violation of the country’s Constitution. It is also confirmed by the fact that Ukrainians, fleeing the arbitrary rule of the authorities, are seeking en masse to move to Russia and they do return to former Ukrainian territories that have become parts of Russia.
Having picked up on these sentiments and receiving discouraging signals from Washington, the head of the Kiev junta has of late significantly lowered the bar of expectations. He is far less enthusiastic in touting his “victory plan”, nor is he “spouting” any longer ideas regarding a potential settlement of the crisis. Make no mistake about these showy peace-loving assertions. All these ideas have a couple of things in common: first, they are rehashes of the so-called “Zelensky formula” and, second, they are impossible to implement in practice, as they do not address the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis. In fact, all Zelensky’s proposals, as well as the ones of a number of Western politicians, who turn on a dime, boil down to freezing the conflict along the “line of contact”, giving up the territories that are now part of Russia, and providing security guarantees for “independent Ukraine” within the altered borders. The last thing on the “wishlist” of the man in the green fufaika is to get Joe Biden before he leaves the White House to extend an invitation to NATO for the whole of Ukraine within internationally recognized borders, with the Alliance’s guarantees being extended “to the part that Ukraine currently controls, with potential for future expansion.”
Even if we cast aside the irrationality of this “awesome new idea”, we would like to recall once again that no schemes aimed at freezing the conflict are agreeable to Russia. The Minsk agreements demonstrated that neither the West nor the Kiev junta can be trusted, and we are well aware that the whole point of such “tricks” is to give the Kiev regime a respite on the battlefield to “lick the wounds” and rearm. NATO involvement in settling the Ukrainian crisis is out of question. From the very outset, NATO and Ukraine’s membership therein have been part of the problem, not part of the solution.
When analyzing this “new mindset,” which the expired Ukrainian authorities all of a sudden began to demonstrate, we urge everyone to judge by the deeds, not by the words. And here everything is absolutely clear. Through its actions, the Kiev regime continues to opt for the path of confrontation and raising the stakes. This is clearly evidenced by the ongoing strikes using Western precision weapons, including the strikes delivered on December 11 and 13 against military facilities in Taganrog and Orel using long-range Western missiles. Let me remind you how Donald Trump assessed these escalating actions by Zelensky in an interview with Time magazine the other day. He called this decision “stupid” and a “serious escalation,” and noted the following: “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse.” I hope that our American colleagues will comment on these words uttered by their president-elect today.
The unwillingness of the expired Ukrainian leadership to move towards peace was also evidenced by the fact that they rejected Hungary’s proposal to establish a Christmas ceasefire and exchange prisoners. We, for our part, drew up a list for exchange on the same day, but Zelensky, once again rudely (as always) rejected this initiative, refusing to take over 600 Ukrainian servicemen who have been in Russia for over a year. It is an open secret that the Kiev regime doesn’t care about ordinary Ukrainians who were forcibly conscripted and thrown to the front line. Kiev wants to trade only fighters from nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries who took part in hostilities against Russia.
The last thing I want to say about these pseudo-peace initiatives of the “expired” president, we would like to remind everyone that the decree of November 2022 banning negotiations with the Russian leadership has to date not been revoked. So you can draw your own conclusion whether his statements and appeals are sincere. We do not rule out that all this is just a “smokescreen” for yet another escalation, as was the case in July and August of this year before the invasion of the Kursk region by Ukrainian fighters and marauders.
Madam president,
We would like to use this opportunity to draw the attention of our UNSC colleagues to the incident involving the IAEA Secretariat vehicle. On 10 December, during a planned rotation of the Agency’s experts at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the Ukrainian armed forces hit a vehicle that was transporting the IAEA staff. A Russian motorcade that was going back after delivering experts to the line of contact was also attacked. Fortunately, there were no victims. During rotations – and this was the 25th one – Russia undertakes to ensure a truce and provides security guarantees to the staff. Ukraine has repeatedly violated these obligations, including in June and November last year, as well as in April this year. According to IAEA information circular No. 264, the incident occurred when the personnel were driving through Ukrainian-controlled territory to the point where they were supposed to cross the contact line. The driver saw a drone approaching from behind, which is from the north, where Ukrainian formations are stationed. Let me clarify that this happened in the run-up to an extraordinary session of the IAEA Board of Governors convened by Ukraine.
We firmly condemn this provocation by the Kiev regime, which has put at risk the lives of the staff of the Agency, and the lives of Russian servicemen who are ensuring the safety of personnel during the rotation. We call on international organizations and the international community to condemn yet another incident of Ukraine’s flagrant violation of IHL.
Madam President,
In conclusion, I cannot but comment on the egregious incident of December 10, 2024, when the Solomenskiy Court in Kiev issued a verdict against Elena Berezhnaya, Ukrainian human rights defender. This world-famous 70-year-old civil rights defender and anti-fascist activist was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. Prior to this she had spent more than two and a half years in pre-trial detention center where she was tortured. Let me remind you that the Zelensky regime initiated a criminal case immediately after Elena spoke at an UNSC informal Arria-formula meeting called by Russia on December 22, 2021. And the basis of her sentence was a letter she sent to the UN, which I quoted at the General assembly meeting of March 28, 2022. In other words, before our very eyes, the Kiev regime is cracking down on a person because she spoke at our invitation here at the UN and submitted a letter to our organization criticizing the human rights situation in Ukraine. I wonder whether today any of our Western colleagues – who in other situations are so much concerned about the safety of speakers invited to the UN – will have a shred of conscience and civil courage to give an honest assessment of these actions by Zelensky and his clique,
Colleagues,
We hope that those of you who really seek peace in Ukraine will have no illusions after our statement today about what Zelensky and his clique are really trying to achieve, and I hope you see now how far they are from bringing peace to their country. Zelensky and his clique are ready to sacrifice all their citizens, mobilize women and children in order to hold on to power and to evade punishment for crimes they have committed against their people.
But the end of the criminal and insatiable regime is looming, the frontline is coming undone across the board, the territory under Ukraine’s control is shrinking by day, and the citizens of Ukraine are increasingly seeking peace and refusing to go to war. Our conditions for ending the conflict are clear and logical and have nothing to do with those surrogate formulas that do not address the threats to Russia emanating from the Kiev regime; and these formulas have been actively promoted by Kiev’s Western allies. As long as they proceed with this promotion, we will continue to pursue the objectives of special military operation by military means and respond to the Kiev regime’s provocations, just as we did on December 13.
Thank you.