Russia’s crimes must not become the ‘new normal’

On Friday, a special high-level meeting of the UN Security Council was held at UN headquarters in New York, dedicated to the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. The Foreign Ministers of Britain, France and Japan attended and spoke. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba arrived in New York to participate.
The international community expressed its solidarity with Ukraine, most speakers strongly condemned Russia’s aggression and called on it to stop the war. The first to speak was UN Secretary General António Guterres. He cited horrific statistics related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine .
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law,” the UN chief said. “This has resulted in a huge amount of death, destruction and population displacement. Attacks on civilian infrastructure have caused many deaths and terrible suffering. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented dozens of cases of sexual violence against men, women and girls. Serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law against prisoners have also been documented.
António Guterres pointed out that “Ukrainians are now living in hell”:
“17 million 600,000 Ukrainians – 40% of the population – need humanitarian aid,” he said. The crisis has destroyed 30% of jobs in the country. According to the World Food Programme, 40% of Ukrainians suffer from malnutrition. The war created a refugee crisis the likes of which Europe had not experienced since World War II.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke immediately after the UN chief. He recalled the resolution adopted the day before by the UN General Assembly. The resolution calls for an immediate end to the war and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. 141 states voted in favor of the resolution, 7 countries voted against, including Russia, Syria and North Korea. 32 states abstained. Kuleba noted that the results of the vote clearly indicate which side the international community is on in this war.
Dmitry Kuleba said Ukraine’s main task now was to restore its territorial sovereignty. The task for the future is to punish Russia for the crimes committed in Ukraine.
“That’s why we call for the establishment of a special court with a specific mandate to investigate Russian crimes in Ukraine and the actions of the main perpetrators of these crimes, even those with immunity,” Kuleba said. . “The geographical reach of Russian crimes against peace and security goes far beyond Ukraine’s borders and reaches into Africa, Asia and the Middle East.”
Kuleba noted that Russia “not only inspires conflicts – it also systematically prevents the Security Council from making decisions that would help resolve them.”
“Today Russia said that this Council is too busy with Ukraine and ignores other world issues. Let’s face it: Russia itself is a problem for the world,” the Foreign Minister of Ukraine said.
At the beginning of the meeting of the UN Security Council, the permanent representative of Russia, Vasily Nebenzya, protested against the fact that the representative of Ukraine spoke immediately after the head of the UN, because , according to Nebenzya, this is against UN protocol (officially, members of the Security Council speak first in order of seniority; Ukraine this month is not a member of the Security Council of the UN). However, the President of the Security Council, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malta, did not comply with Russia’s request, arguing that this entire meeting was devoted to Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also addressed the Security Council meeting. He said that the international community has an obligation to continue supporting Ukraine, otherwise it would be a violation of the UN Charter. According to Blinken, it was to fight aggressors like Russia that the UN was created.
“We must continue to collect evidence of the many atrocities committed by Russia, including executions, torture, rape and sexual assault, as well as the deportation of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia,” Blinken said. “We must continue to document Russian crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war, and provide this data to investigators and prosecutors so that the perpetrators are then punished. These crimes are committed every day, and there is a danger of getting used to these horrors, of losing the ability to feel shock and outrage.
Blinken spoke of the terrible price Ukrainians are paying for Russia’s geopolitical ambitions and how the world can never “get used to” what is happening in Ukraine.
“But we cannot let these crimes committed by Russia become the new normal for us,” the US secretary of state said. – Butch – that’s not normal! Mariupol is not normal! Irpin is not normal! Bombing and turning schools and residential buildings into ruins is not normal! Stealing Ukrainian children from their parents and transferring them to Russian families is not normal! We cannot allow Putin’s callous indifference to human life to become our indifference. We must force ourselves to remember that behind every atrocity in this war launched by Russia, as well as other conflicts around the world, there are human lives.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not come to New York for a meeting of the Security Council. Russia’s permanent representative Vasily Nebenzya said in his speech that Russia is fighting “fascism” in Ukraine, as well as those who want to “dismember and destroy” Russia. He also indicated that this meeting of the Security Council will end with a week at the UN, during which there has been a lot of “ruckus and commotion”. Recall that all week in the UN there were events of different levels dedicated to the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and primarily condemning Russian actions.
The participants in the meeting of the Security Council, ministers or members of foreign delegations, honored the memory of those killed in Ukraine with a minute of silence.