Mr. Chairman,
First of all, I would like to express my deep regret that a number of participating States continue to make the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation (FSB) a platform for inciting confrontation. We categorically deny this line. It is clear that our political assessments of what is happening differ. But it is simply dangerous to dwell on this, especially when it comes to the need to evacuate civilians blocked by Ukrainian nationalists from cities. We have already had experience in the OSCE, when for 8 years the Western participating states turned a blind eye to Kiev’s non-compliance with the Minsk agreements and the shelling of civilians in Donbass, as well as condoned the rampant nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine. The disastrous consequences of this political short-sightedness are well known. Our message is very clear – it’s time to abandon double standards for the sake of the conjuncture, especially when it comes to human lives.
It is known that in the EU and the United States, they are trying in every possible way to close any mass media and information channels from Russia about what is happening in Ukraine, how a special military operation is developing and how the Ukrainian army, Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalions behave towards civilians. Today we will break this information vacuum in which colleagues are staying. They are aimed at a professional conversation that is based on facts, not speculation.
Today is the 14th day of the Russian military operation on demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, which is carried out in accordance with Article 51 of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, with the sanction of the Federation Council of Russia and in pursuance of the treaties on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with the DPR and LPR ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22. Its goal was made public – the prevention of genocide of the civilian population of Donbass. We knew for certain about the preparation by the Kiev regime of an offensive operation in the Donbass in March of this year. This is evidenced by the secret documents of the command of the National Guard of Ukraine discovered during the special operation. So, in the order of the commander of the forces of the Ukrainian National Guard, Colonel-General N. Balan, dated January 22, which colleagues can see on the screen, a plan for preparing offensive actions in the zone of the so-called “operation of the united forces” in the Donbass is set out in detail. According to the document, the deputyThe commander of the National Guard was tasked to organize in the period from February 7 to February 28 the combat coordination of the battalion tactical group of the National Guard as part of the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). I would like to emphasize that since 2016, this compound has been trained by American and British instructors in training programs of the “NATO standard” in Lviv. The Russian military operation that began on February 24 thwarted the plans of the Kiev regime to attack the DPR and LPR. At the same time, the question remains open: how deeply were the United States and NATO countries involved in the planning and preparation of the assault on Donbass by the Ukrainian interspecific group of troops?
Mr. Chairman,
During the special operation, only military infrastructure facilities that were created for the purpose of militarization of Ukraine and conducting a brutal punitive operation against the civilian population of Donbass are being put out of action by high-precision means. To date, 2,581 objects of the Ukrainian military infrastructure have been destroyed, including 90 control points and communication centers of the armed forces, 123 S-300, Buk M-1 and Osa air defense systems, as well as 81 radars. 897 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 95 MLRS, 336 field artillery and mortars, 662 units were put out of action. special military vehicles and 84 UAVs.
Contrary to the anti-Russian mantras of Western partners about threats to Ukraine, the true danger to the country and its people now comes from neo-Nazi military formations that commit numerous war crimes and use terrorist methods. At the same time, official Kiev does not fulfill its promises to stop this barbarism, releases from prisons and arms criminals who form gangs of looters who commit atrocities throughout Ukraine.
The nationalist units retreating in the Donbass, formed in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, cause enormous damage to critical social infrastructure and life support facilities of the population. Water supply and energy systems suffer the greatest damage. The purpose of such actions is to bring Donbass to a humanitarian catastrophe.
The DPR servicemen continue to squeeze the encirclement ring around Mariupol, in which the militants of the Azov national battalion mined the production workshops of the Azovstal plant at night. Residents of the city are still working at the enterprise, although the nationalists are preparing to blow up the plant with people in the event of a breakthrough in the defense of the city. The militants of the Azov and Aidar national battalions are firing at the People’s militia units that entered Mariupol from positions equipped in schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals and kindergartens. According to the civilians who escaped from Mariupol, the situation in the nationalist-occupied city is difficult. People are hiding in basements. Nationalists open fire on all civilians trying to leave their homes. Using terrorist tactics, it is in houses with inscriptions “Don’t shoot – there are children here!” that they deploy firing points.
This is the signature handwriting of Ukrainian radicals, which they learned not without the support of NATO partners. The close ties of the alliance with radical nationalist security forces are evidenced by the discovery at the headquarters of the “Right Sector” (the organization is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) of a laptop marked with NATO, which contains intelligence data about the Donbass and Crimea. We also remember perfectly well how Ukrainians have been trained in urban warfare tactics using Western techniques and the “kill house” simulator at the Yavorovsky military training ground under the guidance of overseas instructors in recent years. The interrogated Ukrainian military do not hide the fact that they specially put “Grads” at residential buildings, hiding behind civilians, and they are instructed by specialists from NATO countries. Here is such a “harmless defensive alliance”, which is actually an accomplice to the war crimes of Ukrainian nationalists.
Mr. Chairman,
At the moment, the Kiev regime has almost completely lost the ability to manage the administrations of regions and districts of the country, local authorities are deprived of the right to independently deal with the civilian population and are unable to solve elementary issues of a social and domestic nature, since national battalions, Nazis and foreign mercenaries who joined them are rampaging in the vast majority of cities.
Russian servicemen are increasingly recording the appearance of mercenaries from third countries, including Albania and Croatia, Kosovo militants and even jihadists with combat experience in Syria (it is not surprising that the use of so-called “jihad mobiles” has become common among Ukrainian national soldiers). Only last week, about 200 mercenaries from Croatia arrived through Poland, who joined one of the nationalist battalions in the south-east of Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine D.Kuleba, at the moment about 20 thousand more mercenaries from 52 states are sent to the country. A visa-free regime is officially introduced for them. In parallel, the US military intelligence has launched a large-scale propaganda campaign to recruit PMC contractors to be sent to Ukraine. First of all, employees of the American PMCs Akedemi, Kubik and Dean Corporation are being recruited.
We warn you: all mercenaries sent by the West to help the Kiev nationalist regime are not combatants under international humanitarian law, they do not have the right to the status of a prisoner of war. The minimum difficulties they may face during detention is criminal prosecution.
Mr. Chairman,
Despite the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, Western countries continue to pump Ukraine with weapons. This year, before the start of a special military operation, about 50 military transport aircraft from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Poland and Lithuania arrived in this country. In total – at least 2 thousand tons of modern weapons, ammunition and protective equipment.
We see that for the sake of Russophobic sentiments and for the sake of inflating the confrontation with Moscow, the United States and its allies once again easily pushed into the background not only their international obligations, but also national legislative norms in the field of export control. Suffice it to recall how, in record time, the American administration issued a permit to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to transfer American MANPADS and other weapons to Kiev. It is also known that the first batch of MANPADS “Stinger” in 200 units. it has already been delivered from the USA to Ukraine. It is very significant that Germany is becoming one of the leading suppliers of weapons to Kiev, which is going to supply more than 2 thousand Strela-2 MANPADS and 500 Stinger MANPADS. In the same row are the Netherlands and, apparently, Italy.
At the same time, Western countries that strenuously pretend to be “saints” do not mention that they grossly ignore UNGA Resolution 62/40 “Prevention of illegal transfer of MANPADS, unauthorized access to them and their unauthorized use” (2007), agreed within the framework of the Wassenaar Arrangement “Elements of Export control for MANPADS” (2003), as well as “OSCE Principles on Export Control of MANPADS”, approved by the OSCE Ministerial Council in Sofia (2004) and updated by FSB Decision 5/08. We remember perfectly well how recently American colleagues were rushing around the world with the idea of minimizing the export of MANPADS in principle and taking into account every unit transferred abroad. The creative fervor of the American colleagues who oversaw the process of updating the OSCE manual on MANPADS has disappeared somewhere and for two years in a row insisted on including passages about the need for reliable control over these complexes in the draft decisions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on light and small arms (SALW) and stocks of conventional ammunition (GOB). It is clear that the Americans and their allies do not really care now whether they will be used by Ukrainian “radicals” on the spot or will flow to other “hot spots”.
By the way, about LSO and GOITER. Massive deliveries of light and small arms are planned to Ukraine from the Czech Republic (4 thousand mortars, 30 thousand pistols, 5 thousand submachine guns, 5 thousand machine guns, sniper rifles), Poland (100 mortars and 1,500 ammunition for them), Canada (machine guns and small arms) and Finland (2.5 thousand rifles and cartridges for them). The United States could not stand aside either. Being already the main sponsor of the Kiev regime, they provide an “additional” package of assistance in the amount of $ 350 million for the purchase of anti-tank weapons and small arms. Fuel is promised by Germany, Belgium and Latvia.
We emphasize that the participating States providing military-technical assistance to Kiev in any form share with the Ukrainian radicals responsibility for civilian casualties. In addition, their actions are a gross violation of paragraph 4 of Section II of the document “Principles Governing the Transfer of Conventional Weapons” (1993) and Section III (A) of the OSCE Document on SALW (2000), which warn participating States from supplying weapons to States with an unstable internal situation. Military supplies to Kiev also do not correlate in any way with the obligations of Western countries under the International Arms Trade Treaty (ITTO) and the EU’s “Common Position”, which provides for a ban on arms exports to regions where this may lead to violations of international humanitarian law and will contribute to the aggravation of internal armed conflicts.
The continued supply of weapons poses unacceptable risks to pan-European security. We are talking about creating the largest hotbed of illegal proliferation of weapons and ammunition in Europe and beyond. In addition, weapons are military targets that, by definition, cannot be guaranteed safety. The organization of weapons convoys is extremely dangerous and can lead to a clash between Russia and NATO countries with the most serious consequences.
We call on the Conflict Prevention Center of the OSCE Secretariat to give a decisive assessment of the blatant violations by Western participating States of the obligations assumed within the framework of the Organization in the field of reliable storage and prevention of the fall of SALW, GOITRE and MANPADS into unreliable hands.
Mr. Chairman,
The situation with nuclear and bacteriological safety in Ukraine remains in the focus of the international community’s attention.
Despite the insinuations voiced in the media, the situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is stable. Russian and Ukrainian servicemen jointly provide protection and control of the radiation situation. We do not create obstacles for staff rotation, we proceed from the fact that the provision of this task is on the Ukrainian side.
At the Zaporozhye NPP on the night of March 4, Ukrainian nationalists committed a dangerous provocation, which was promptly stopped by Russian servicemen. The IAEA confirmed that the safety systems of the Zaporozhye NPP were not affected, there was no radiation release. Zelensky’s statements about the alleged threat of a nuclear power plant and his negotiations with Washington and London leave no doubt: the purpose of the provocation of the Kiev regime at the nuclear facility was an attempt to accuse Russia of creating a hotbed of radioactive contamination. All this indicates his criminal intent or the complete loss of V. Zelensky’s control over the actions of Ukrainian sabotage groups with the participation of foreign mercenaries.
The data available to us indicate that R&D was carried out in Ukraine to create a nuclear explosive device (JAVA), which could later be used in the design of nuclear warheads, and the work was carried out both in uranium and plutonium directions. A key role in the creation of JAVA was assigned to the National Scientific Center “Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology”. In this regard, it is not surprising that the Security Service of Ukraine and the militants of the Azov battalion mined a reactor at an experimental nuclear installation at this institute, preparing a provocation with possible radioactive contamination of the area near Kharkov. We urge them to come to their senses and prevent a catastrophe.
During a special military operation, the facts of the Kiev regime’s emergency sweep of traces of a military biological program funded by the US Department of Defense implemented in Ukraine were revealed. From the staff of the Ukrainian biological laboratories, Russian servicemen received documentation on the emergency destruction of especially dangerous pathogens of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases on February 24. In other words, the development of components of biological weapons was carried out in the immediate vicinity of the territory of Russia. The customer of the work carried out is the Office of the US Department of Defense for Reducing the Military Threat (DTRA). The work was carried out, first of all, in order to monitor the biological situation in the proposed areas of deployment of military contingents of the NATO bloc states. In order to prevent the disclosure of facts of violation by the United States and Ukraine of Article 1 of the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons (BTWC), the Ukrainian Ministry of Health sent an instruction to all biolaboratories on the emergency liquidation of stored stocks of dangerous pathogens. Colleagues can see some of them, including the instruction of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on the destruction of pathogens and acts of destruction in the Poltava and Kharkiv biological laboratories on slides. The analysis of the acts of destruction shows the work with pathogens of plague, anthrax and brucellosis in the Lviv biological Laboratory, as well as pathogens of diphtheria, salmonellosis and dysentery in laboratories in Kharkiv and Poltava. We believe that comprehensive steps are overdue to ensure the verifiable fulfillment by the BTWC member states of their obligations in order to put the military-biological activity of the United States and its allies in the post-Soviet space under close international control.
Mr. Chairman,
The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is becoming a disaster. Ukrainian neo-Nazis and radicals are holding 4.5 million people and about 2 thousand foreigners hostage, using them as a “human shield” and not allowing evacuation. The Kiev regime by all means prevents the exit of willing civilians and foreigners to Russia, because it is afraid that people who are at large will tell the truth about the actions of Ukrainian radicals. In addition, the “silence regimes” announced by the Russian side are being used by nationalists to strengthen positions and relocate military equipment, as evidenced by the UAV shooting materials.
We emphasize that the use of civilians as a “human shield” and disruptions of the evacuation of civilians along humanitarian corridors directly violate the norms of international humanitarian law, including articles 57 and 58 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Neither Western countries, nor the UN, nor the OSCE have yet given adequate assessments of what is happening. How long should Ukrainian civilians and thousands of foreigners be in fear and humiliation before the civilized world opens its eyes?
Taking into account the exceptional importance of the humanitarian component during the special military operation in Ukraine, by the decision of the country’s leadership, an Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response was established at the Russian Defense Ministry on the basis of the National Defense Management Center of the Russian Federation, which began working around the clock. We have already received 2.5 million appeals from Ukrainian citizens and foreigners requesting evacuation to Russia.
I would like to emphasize that detailed information about humanitarian corridors is communicated in advance to the Ukrainian side, representatives of embassies of foreign states, UN, OSCE and ICRC structures. On March 4 and 7, despite the coordination with the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine I. Vereshchuk of the parameters of humanitarian corridors from Kiev, Mariupol, Sumy and Kharkiv, the evacuation of citizens from these cities was disrupted by radicals. Those who decided to leave Mariupol on March 4 at their own risk were shot by the Ukrainian Nazis at roadblocks on the way out. On March 7, I. Vereshchuk called the opening of humanitarian corridors in the direction of Russia “absurd and unacceptable.” The UN commented on this situation as follows: “Citizens should be able to evacuate wherever they want.”
Moreover, the Ukrainian authorities, using Internet resources and television, are actively misinforming the residents of Mariupol about the postponement of the evacuation, due to the alleged non-compliance by the Russian side with the promised “silence regimes”. Against this background, the adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine, A. Arestovich, said in an appeal to Ukrainian citizens: “Stop whining,” thereby making it clear that the rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning themselves. This is a total deception and betrayal of his people.
On the night of March 8, our country launched another initiative to conduct a humanitarian operation. Unfortunately, of the 10 routes offered to the Ukrainian side, Kiev confirmed only one – from the city of Sumy via Poltava. Thanks to the unprecedented security measures taken by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, 723 people, including foreigners, were evacuated along the specified route.
Today, despite the constant disruptions by the Ukrainian side of measures to open humanitarian corridors, from 10:00 (Moscow time), our country declared a “regime of silence” and confirmed its readiness to provide humanitarian corridors from Kiev, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol and other settlements in coordination with the Ukrainian side. Colleagues can get acquainted with the urgent statement of the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of Russia on Humanitarian Response in Ukraine on the official Internet portal of the Ministry of Defense.
Statements about the impossibility of evacuating to Russia are false. More than 174 thousand people were taken from the zone of a special military operation in our country without the participation of the Ukrainian side, including 44,187 children, including 5,550, of which 740 children, during the day. We are deploying temporary accommodation facilities. We provide humanitarian assistance in areas under the control of Russian military personnel (already 946 tons), where the population continues to live a peaceful life and is provided with everything necessary.
We call on the Western OSCE participating States to influence the Kiev regime to carry out conscientious work on opening and ensuring the safety of humanitarian corridors so that all interested citizens can evacuate in the directions that are preferable for them. This is the most urgent task right now. Mr. Chairman,
In conclusion, in response to the bravura anti-Russian statements of Western delegations, I would like to remind you that the Russian Government has recently officially expanded the list of unfriendly states. Now, in addition to the USA and the Czech Republic, it includes all EU countries, the UK and some others. Their own rules of the game will be applied to them. These countries have always tried to impose their conditions within the framework of a certain “rules-based order”. From now on, they will have to play by our rules until they recognize the generally established ones.
I cannot ignore the Western policy of sanctions against Russia. They are hard for our people, but we will survive. Russia has already begun to form a response to unfriendly states. What you are now seeing on the world markets is just a prelude. The main sanctions against you, if you do not come to your senses, are ahead.
Thank you for your attention and please attach this statement to the Journal of the Day.
