Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna aired a statement on “Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine and illegal occupation of Crimea”
Ambassador Ihor
Prokopchuk, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to
the International Organizations in Vienna, delievered
a statement on “Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine and
illegal occupation of Crimea” to the 1172nd meeting of the Permanent
Council, 18 January 2018.
“At this
first regular Permanent Council meeting of 2018, the Ukrainian Delegation
wishes to emphasize the undiminished grave security challenges stemming from
Russia’s ongoing aggression against the territorial
integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. The conflict,
started by Russia through military invasion and occupation of the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and launching a hybrid warfare in
certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of
Ukraine, will soon enter its fifth year. Over all this time, the violence has
never effectively stopped,” the Ambassador emphasized.
A number of
international laws and assumed obligations are still not observed. Among those are number one provision of the Minsk agreements on
immediate, comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire, a recommitment to ceasefire
“reached at the TCG meeting and effective from midnight of 23 December 2017 is
not respected by the Russia-led forces in Donbas with a tendency to escalation
in the number of ceasefire violations”. “In the last 24 hours 3 Ukrainian
servicemen were killed and five were wounded. The SMM Deputy Chief Monitor
pointed out in his briefing last Friday to the average number of violations at
five hundred per day since 28 December 2017,” Ihor Prokopchuk told. “In the last decade
the Russian Federation has established its track-record of flagrant
disregard for its international obligations and commitments and for the rules-based
security order underpinned by the norms and
principles of the Helsinki Final
Act and the
Paris Charter,” he added.
“In the interests
of European security it remains
critically important to maintain and
step up politico-diplomatic
pressure on Russia to make
it return to the tenets
of international law and implement
the undertaken commitments. We again urge Russia
to reverse the illegal occupation
of Crimea and Sevastopol, and to stop
its aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing
its troops from the Ukrainian
territory and fully implementing its commitments under the Minsk
agreements,” the Permanent Representative of Ukraine said to wound up his
statement.