27th session of the UN Human Rights Council
Agenda item 3
Clustered interactive dialogue with theWorking Group on mercenaries
and the Independent Expert on democratic and equitable international order
Intervention by the Permanent Representative of Ukraine
Ambassador Yurii Klymenko
September 10, 2014
Mr. President,
First of all, I would like to commend the Working Group on mercenaries’ work on the issues which are, without exaggeration, life-critical, and thank for the opportunity to discuss matters related to its mandate.
Today we have to deal with new, more refined forms of the disgusting phenomenon called mercenary, which threatens human rights, including the most fundamental one – the right to life.
Currently my country facesa type of mercenary which seemed unbelievable to us when we were signing the UN Mercenary Convention in 1990.
I mean the new form of, so to say,state-promoted recruitment of mercenaries, thousands of which the Russian Federation brings to my country with the clear purpose to undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity and constitutional state – doings which the Convention clearly defines as mercenary.
In addition to its previous model of supporting illegal armed groups terrorizing southeast of my country with sophisticated armaments, ammunition and trained militants, the Russian Federation recently began sending to Ukraine units of its regular army, the active duty personnel of which formally is either “on leave”or forced to cease their contracts.
Moreover, recruitment offices in Russia actively search for highly experiencedformer servicemen, particularly, with military operation experience able to handle modern weaponry.
To our grave concern, combination of cynical purposes and refined ability to kill almost inevitably leads to unpredictable aggravation of the conflict – as it happened with the downing of flight MH-17of Malaysian Airlines.
And last but not least. Regarding allegations expressed earlier by the Russian delegation: we are not aware of any reports of the OSCE or other reputable organizations proving contentious accusation of the use of mercenaries by the Ukrainian side. It is vice versa, there are credible reports of the OHCHR Monitoring Mission in Ukraine clearly documenting participation, in particular, of Russian militants in disruptive actions in the southeast of my country.
My delegation wonders what can be done to efficiently combat such a relatively new – state-promoted – form of mercenary. In this regard I appeal to the Group to pay due attention to the issue and consider possible ways of dealing with this extremely dangerous phenomenon.
I thank you.