Remarks in exercise of the right of reply
by the Permanent Representative of Ukraine,
Ambassador Yurii Klymenko
at the ai 3 General Debates of the 27th session
of the Human Rights Council
(Geneva, September 12, 2014)
Mr. President,
In reply to the statement delivered earlier by the delegation of the Russian Federation under the agenda item 3, I would like to say the following.
Once again we are witnessing false and hypocritical allegations of the Russian delegation for justifying its aggressive actions against my country. Unfortunately, they are getting more and more cynical as well as full of verbiage in worst traditions of Soviet propaganda of the murky Cold War times.
It seems that it is from there that they are getting their wording and inspiration, synchronizing speeches’ style.
We hoped, all that was left well behind, but unfortunately the old rudiments of the Cold War are once again called for.
As in those times, the black is called white and white is called black.
The Russian delegation is repeating like a mantra that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine. But how this could be explained to the Russian Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, unable to locate their sons who had informed them on dispatching to southeastern Ukraine?
And how the recent appeal of Liubov Glebova, the member of the Russia’s Federation Council’s Committee on Foreign Affairs to support both morally and financially its citizens, fighting on the side of the illegal armed groups on the territory of Ukraine should be interpreted? And what does it mean – awarding soldiers from North Ossetia, who visited Ukraine on, so to speak, vacation leave, but in fact fought in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with medals "For the Glory of Ossetia", some of them – posthumously?
Maybe, it’s a bit premature for the official Russian position - to recognize their military presence in the southeast of Ukraine? We all remember well inconsistency of the Russian stance on similar issue with regard to Crimea, where the system of democratic institutions and protection of human rights, including rights of national minorities, freedom of speech, assembly and religion, built up since Ukraine’s independence, now is virtually eliminated.
As for the peninsula issue – the Russian Federation is isolated in its wishful thinking. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine by adopting its resolution 68/262. And the fact that Russia didn’t support this document does not mean at all that what was stolen became legally acquired.
Mr. President,
There is an extremely active session underway. So, we urge the Russian delegation not to overload already very busy programme of work with politicized, biased, untrue information and contentious allegations. And we strongly recommend them to channel their energy in the right direction, namely to improve the rapidly worsening human rights situation in their own country.
I thank you.