Friday, March 29

Speech by the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE, A.K. Lukashevich, at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on the deteriorating situation in Ukraine and the continued non-compliance by the Ukrainian authorities with the Minsk Agreements

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Dear Madam Chairman,

In recent days, we have seen a certain change in rhetoric in those countries where until recently they threatened the world with the threat of an “imminent attack” on Ukraine. Some media outlets, such as the Bloomberg agency, managed to release fake news about the “invasion” that had already begun in the information field last Friday. Then deleted. US officials also adjusted the tone. The other day, the head of European diplomacy Zh.Borrel also said he did not believe in a “Russian invasion” of Ukraine.

Let’s recall the zeal with which not so long ago representatives of a number of Western countries sought to convince everyone of the opposite. Including in this hall. The dates were called: in November, in December, in January, and so on. As the facts show, all these “horror stories” turned out to be nothing more than propaganda “zilch”, empty chatter.

Now let’s turn to the real situation in Ukraine. A protracted armed civil conflict continues in the country, caused and fueled by the aggressive and unceremonious interference of the West in the processes of development of the Ukrainian state and society. In February, Ukraine will celebrate the eighth anniversary of the bloody armed coup of 2014 organized with the support from abroad. The coup that lifted the most radical nationalist parties and movements into the firmament of Ukrainian politics, which began to aggressively impose ideas of militant nationalism and Russophobia alien to the majority of the population – all this under the guise of alleged patriotism. The uncontrolled circulation of weapons by nationalists and neo-Nazis, their desire to impose their own orders throughout the country led to a natural result: many Ukrainians opposed the artificial split of society and against the self-styled authorities who acted in conjunction with the nationalists. At that time, in the south-east of Ukraine, people began to organize themselves into people’s squads to protect their homes and a peaceful way of life from the encroachments of nationalists.

The refusal of the “Maidan” authorities from a civilized and respectful dialogue with the residents of their own country led to an armed confrontation. A military operation was launched to suppress dissent. Even after signing the Minsk Agreements under international control, the then leadership of Ukraine continued military planning for a “direct dialogue with Donbass.” Dialogue with artillery and mortars – in the form of shelling, casualties, destruction.

In choosing such tactics, the Ukrainian authorities were and are not independent. The notorious “external governance”, under which the country has fallen in recent years, leaves its imprint, saying goodbye to the remnants of state sovereignty. There is no doubt that without the destructive influence from abroad, Ukrainians would be able to find a common language and achieve peace among themselves much faster. On both sides of the contact line live relatives and friends of each other who have fallen into the “millstones” of new artificially imposed political watersheds – dividing lines introduced by geopolitical strategists from the West and other demagogues who generously distributed cookies and equally sweet, but empty promises on the Maidan.

In the midst of an armed civil confrontation, instead of promoting an inclusive national dialogue in the interests of peace based on the Minsk Package of Measures, the foreign patrons of the post-Maidan authorities decided to invest in the militarization of Ukraine. They began to send there not political signals about the need to fulfill the “Minsk”, but military allocations, equipment and weapons, shells and cartridges, with which some citizens of Ukraine continue to kill other citizens of Ukraine to this day. In short, they began to push the “hotheads” in every possible way to a military solution to the “Donbass problem” in the conditions of sabotage of the Minsk agreements.

Take a look at the figures just from the beginning of this year: at least twelve planes from the United States and Great Britain, two from Canada and one from Poland arrived in Ukraine – all with weapons on board and other military cargo. The United States alone sent about 700 tons of cargo. Immediately after the arrival of these cargoes, the United States and Great Britain, with the help of their so-called “instructors”, began training the Ukrainian military on the combat use of delivered missile systems, grenade launchers and other weapons in urban areas. Specific plans to send at least 100 additional military personnel from the British special forces and 200 people from the Canadian special operations forces have long been no secret. If the authorities in Kiev claim that they are not preparing offensive actions or armed provocations, why is this all? By the way, since the beginning of the year, the SMM has counted more than eight thousand violations of the ceasefire regime in Donbass. Will there be fewer of them after such military preparations?

Eight years later, the problems in Ukraine are the same as in 2014. Radical nationalists from illegal armed formations have not been disarmed. For example, the same “Right Sector”. They continue their attempts – with the support of the current authorities – to impose their orders in the east of Ukraine with “fire and sword”. Their plans do not include the observance of the ceasefire or the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The authorities, in turn, cannot or do not want to do anything about it, acting, in fact, in concert with them.

Let us recall how representatives of nationalist battalions in November 2019 did not allow President V. Zelensky to carry out the breeding of forces and means in the Gold, they did not want to leave this breeding site with weapons. Under their pressure and at the American “prompt”, V. Zelensky, at the “Normandy” summit in Paris on December 9, 2019, refused to approve the plan already agreed by experts and adopted by Donetsk and Lugansk for the withdrawal of forces and means along the entire contact line. Having agreed in the minutes of the meeting of the Contact Group on March 11, 2020 to a direct dialogue with authorized representatives of certain regions of Donbass, Kiev then actually disavowed the signature under the agreements on the establishment of the Advisory Council.

It is not surprising that the meetings of the Contact Group and its working subgroups held on February 8-9 again ended in vain. They reconfirmed: Kiev does not intend to conduct a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk. On February 3, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, D. Kuleba, said on one of the Ukrainian TV channels that the Minsk agreements “cannot be fulfilled on Russian terms, which are based on a direct dialogue between Ukraine and the ORDLO, which is being imposed on us.” A day earlier, he said that Donbass would not receive any special status. With these guidelines, as he stressed, the representative of Ukraine will also go to today’s meeting of foreign policy advisers of the leaders of the Normandy Four in Berlin. Should we wait for progress on it?

It is worth emphasizing that the need to implement the provisions of “Minsk” in consultations and in coordination with representatives of certain districts of Donbass is not some “Russian conditions”, but a direct prescription of the Minsk “Package of Measures”. Once again, we draw attention to the statement of the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine A. Danilov in an interview with the Associated Press: there he directly said that Kiev was not going to and is not going to implement the Minsk agreements, because their implementation “would mean the destruction of the country.”

Thus, the Ukrainian authorities, without encountering any criticism from foreign patrons, seek to send a false signal to the Ukrainian society that the Minsk agreements are destructive in their essence, and their implementation will mean almost “surrender”.

Against this background, it is worth paying attention to what the militant Ukrainian national radicals are saying today. Listen to the words of E. Karas, the leader of the infamous movement “C14– – on February 5 in Kiev at the nationalist forum “Bandera Readings” he said: “We have now been given so many weapons not because we are good, but because we are the only ones who are ready to fulfill the tasks of the West. Because it’s fun for us, it’s fun for us to kill and it’s fun to fight.” Arguments about how “fun and fun” it is to fight with your people do not find a proper legal assessment of the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, nor political on the part of the country’s leadership, nor international – for example, within the OSCE.

New groups of paramilitary nationalists continue to appear – at the beginning of this year, a so-called “closed guerrilla network” called “Honor of the Nation” was created, which now numbers about a thousand people. On February 6, under the instruction of the nationalists from the Aidar battalion who visited the Donbass, members of this association held combat training exercises with weapons in their hands.

Madam Chairman,

These days, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Z.Rau is making a visit to Ukraine, he will also visit the areas of Donbass controlled by Kiev. Sorry that Z.Rau did not respond to the invitation of representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Contact Group and did not find an opportunity to get acquainted with the real state of affairs on the other side of the contact line.

Once again, we call on the foreign curators of the current Kiev regime to refrain from fostering the ideas of aggressive nationalism in Ukraine, to stop the destabilizing militarization of this country. It should be understood that the full implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, approved by UN Security Council resolution 2202, is an alternative way of peaceful, political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict. The implementation of the Minsk provisions in their entirety, consistency and interrelationship will not be a “surrender”, but a tool for ending the armed confrontation in eastern Ukraine, achieving sustainable peace and national reconciliation, as well as restoring territorial integrity.

In particular, we remind those UN Security Council member states that on February 17, 2015 joined the unanimous support of the “Package of Measures”, which presupposes a direct dialogue between Kiev and Donetsk and Lugansk.

Thank you for your attention.

Source: https://mid.ru/ru/detail-material-page/1798971/

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