46th session of the UN Human Rights Council
Agenda item 2
Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary General

Intervention by Permanent Representative of Ukraine 

Ambassador Yurii Klymenko

February 26, 2021

Madame President,
Madame High Commissioner,

I would like to thank the High Commissioner for oral update and her determination to further advocate and promote the human rights.

We positively note the OHCHR’s rapid response to the pandemic, including the release last December of the thematic report on COVID-19 impact on human rights situation in Ukraine.

We encourage the OHCHR to continue paying special attention to my country, particularly to its temporarily occupied territories, to the critical situation therein resulting from the fast spread of COVID-19 caused by Russia's failure to fulfil its obligations as an occupying power in terms of ensuring adequate medical care and protection of population.

Ukraine has already drawn attention on numerous occasions to this problem, provided the OHCHR with the lists of its citizens illegally detained under politically motivated charges in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories of Crimea and Donbas, as well as in the Russian Federation. Every day their lives are under double jeopardy, considering the inhuman and degrading conditions of imprisonment and non-admission of doctors to sick prisoners even with clear signs of COVID-19.

Predictably, the Russian Federation has been exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to further restrict access to the Crimean Peninsula for human rights monitoring mechanisms, to hide from the international community human rights’ and IHL violations committed by the occupying administration.

At home, Russia continues to crackdown on independent civil society and dissenting voices, to arbitrarily deprive its own people of liberty and brutally curtail the exercise of the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.

The same patterns are regretfully observed in Venezuela, Belarus, Nicaragua, Myanmar. We hope that the OHCHR will constantly keep the situations in these states on the spotlight.

As for Ukraine, it will continue to take dedicated measures to ensure the proper protection of the rights and freedoms of all persons living in its whole territory within the internationally recognized borders.

The Ukrainian side will further cooperate closely with the High Commissioner and her Office as well as the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

We are looking forward to the Interactive dialogue on Ukraine based on Mission’s findings on March 19 and invite delegations, as well as NGOs to take an active part in it.

I thank you.