It is time to wake up. That was the appeal made by Secretary- General Antonio Guterres to us all, the world’s leaders, on the eve of the General Assembly’s general debate (see A/76/PV.3). That appeal is very special for me, because for me, every night before a meeting of the Assembly has been a sleepless one.
Back in 2019, I was excited about addressing the Assembly for the first time (see A/74/PV.5). The following year, 2020, was generally a sleepless year for the whole world because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. But I want to tell the General Assembly about last night in greater detail. At 3 a.m., my phone started ringing off the hook to inform me that Serhiy Shefir, the top aide to the President of Ukraine, had been attacked. Twelve shots were fired, three of which hit his driver. That is the price of change in my country and the price of reform. Fortunately, Serhiy survived. Fortunately, the driver’s life is now out of danger. This will not be an ordinary, typical United Nations speech, however, but I hope it will be instructive to everyone here and sound the alarm that it is time to wake up.
Without flattery or exaggeration, I can say that Ukraine has been doing just that for a long time. It did not sleep when it was busy surviving the Holodomor famine and the Babiy Yar massacre. Ukraine was awake when the whole planet lived through the two World Wars and the Holocaust, which claimed 100 million lives. That was the price for humankind to learn the hard way that all peoples and nations are equal and that every conflict should be resolved through dialogue alone, not with tanks. It was in that belief that Ukraine became one of the founding nations of the United Nations, back in 1945.1 am quite certain that the representatives there would have been shocked to see the words “respect the rights of people” in the theme of the General Assembly this year. I am sure they would have asked, “What have you been doing for the past 76 years?”
That question has been answered by COVID-19. We have been playing at equality and unity, for it is one thing to share objectives and quite another to share vaccines that give life. It turns out that the lines about equality were like the words in an advertisement, with an asterisk and a footnote in fine print that says, “We are all in the same boat, but the first-class passengers will be given access to the lifeboats first”.
Ukraine did not expect any help from others, and it has been helping others without expecting their gratitude. We dispatched our doctors to Italy. We also sent personal protective equipment. Ukraine helped everyone who needed our help at a time when the world forgot that the pandemic was not here for good and that one day every nation would gather here again. But how will they look one another in the eye? I can say that Ukraine has nothing to be ashamed of. My country has the right to say that it wants to revitalize the United Nations. Indeed we do. To start with, we need to resurrect the Charter of the United Nations. It is not a set of recommendations for voluntary compliance. It does not say “Every man for himself”. If we can do that, the world will not have to admit that it has failed COVID-19, a test of unity. It will not have to look away in shame as we mark the twentieth anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, on eliminating all forms of racial discrimination. Who could have imagined that medicine itself would one day become an instrument of discrimination? In the context of the continuing discussions of the global food crisis, is that how we will one day distribute bread and water?
Are we waking up? I want to believe that. COVID-19 has not been completely defeated. And the global vaccination plan is not making progress. Not to mention that any guarantees that there will be no new viruses in the world are about as good as the security guarantees in the Budapest Memorandum.
It is time to wake up. In all honesty, Ukraine has never slept. It is hard to sleep to the sounds of explosions and gunfire that we are hearing in our occupied Donbas region for the eighth year in a row. In 2019, speaking from this rostrum, I said that more than 13,000 people had been killed and 30,000 wounded in the war in Ukraine (see A/74/PV.5). Consider this — 1.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Those numbers are recited at the United Nations every year, with only one difference — every year they keep growing. I spoke about that in 2020 (see A/75/PV.7) and I am saying it again today, in 2021. At this point the number of people killed has reached almost 15,000.
This is the price of freedom and independence. The shots are probably not heard as loudly in Central Park or Madison Square Garden as in the Avdiivka industrial zone or the Svitlodarsk Bulge. Do we need to revitalize the United Nations? Could it be that the United Nations should get moving to deal with this, to become faster and more mobile? Could it be time for us to meet in places where we can really hear and see these global problems? There are thousands of trouble spots in the world, and Ukraine is ready to participate in United Nations meetings alongside any of them. In my opinion, what we need to revitalize the United Nations is the truth.
“If all those who can influence developments in that country were to give their earnest support to the peace-making efforts of the world community, shells would no longer be raining down on Afghan soil and civilians in that country would no longer be terrified by machine-gun fire.”
Those are the words of Leonid Kravchuk, the first President of an independent Ukraine, speaking 30 years ago from this rostrum at the forty-sixth session of the General Assembly (see A/46/PV.14). Thirty years have not been enough for them to lose their relevance. Yet it took Ukraine only one day to carry out an operation to rescue civilians in Kabul. Our military evacuated almost 700 people — Ukrainian citizens, as well as those of many other countries and members of human rights organizations, journalists representing various media outlets — the Globe and Mail, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Stars and Stripes. They were men, women, children and elderly people from different countries, nationalities and religions. That, I believe, is a commitment to the founding principles of the United Nations.
The participation of 46 States and international organizations in the inaugural summit of the Crimea Platform on the de-occupation of Crimea represents a commitment to the founding principles of the United Nations. And I am very grateful to all of those countries. But the fact that the United Nations has ignored a platform aimed at solving problems of international law and occupation represents new, unsupported principles. If we want to revitalize the United Nations, let us remember that there are no chosen ones here who must not be offended. The United Nations is made up of 193 countries, and I invite all of them to join the joint declaration of the Crimea Platform participants, condemning the occupation and showing that they oppose changing borders by force anywhere in the world.
I do not mean this ironically or as trolling, but this format will always be open to Russia, and I want to explain why. It is because no one in the world feels safe anymore. I want to emphasize that. No one feels safe. And no one can hide behind international law as if it were a stone wall.
(spoke in Russian)
“[That] could lead to the collapse of the entire architecture of international relations. Then we would indeed be left with no rules beyond might is right. That would be a world ruled by selfishness rather than collective effort; a world ever more dictatorial and less about equality,genuine democracy and freedom...
“What, after all, is State sovereignty ...? More than anything it is about freedom — the freedom of every person, people or State to choose their own destiny.” (A/70/PV13, p. 24)
(spoke in Ukrainian; English interpretation provided by the delegation)
I spoke in Russian because I was quoting the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement delivered in Munich in 2007 and at the General Assembly in 2015. Was it untrue? Unfortunately, we know Moscow’s answer. In early September, Nariman Dzhelyalov, the First Deputy Head of the Crimean Tatars’ Mejlis, was illegally detained in Crimea. The Russian Federation accused a political scientist, prominent journalist, television presenter and professor of law and history of attempting to blow up a section of a gas pipeline. That is the price of freedom of speech, of fighting for one’s
rights, for human rights. I really count on the support of the international community in securing his release and that of some 450 Ukrainians who are being illegally detained in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation.
I urge everyone to support the updated resolutions on the human rights situation in the occupied Crimea and the militarization of Ukraine’s occupied peninsula, which will be submitted to the General Assembly by the end of the year. We are grateful that the item entitled “Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine” was included on the agenda of the Assembly for this session, but how could the territories of Crimea and the Donbas, which are still occupied, disappear from the agenda? That is obvious not only to us. I thank all the States that have mentioned Ukraine in their addresses here this year. That is very important. And there are many others that are not ashamed to call Ukraine their friend and partner. They are willing to call a spade a spade, an occupation an occupation and aggression aggression, without fear that anyone will walk out of this Hall. That should not happen. This is a forum for dialogue. It will definitely not bring Ukraine happiness, although it might if a certain someone departed our State’s territories and borders.
In 1945, Crimea hosted the Yalta Conference, where the foundations for world peace were laid and the decision was made to convene the United Nations Conference on International Organization to establish our Organization. Both Yalta and Crimea have been occupied for eight years now. How are we supposed to revitalize the United Nations if the very birthplace of the idea of the United Nations is now under occupation by a permanent member of the Security Council? The President of the seventy-sixth Assembly has spoken at length about climate change and the protection of the environment and nature on the planet (see A/76/PV.3). In that context, Crimea needs major attention from the United Nations. A unique ecosystem has been converted into a military base. Instead of flora and fauna, there is a naval fleet and soldiers. And in the souls of Crimeans, the biggest problem is not global warming, but rather global devastation.
We must admit that the world does not have enough time to solve all of its problems. The United Nations raises very important issues and does not have time to resolve them because new ones are always appearing. Every time, we seem to choose a “global disaster of the year”, which next year few people remember, because by then there is a new one. At every General Assembly session the world adds these problems to the big pack of threats that it has been carrying for years and that is already overflowing. Dig down into it and we find starvation, poverty, illiteracy, lack of clean air or water — and occupied territories. We never have enough time to solve those problems, and most importantly, we never seem to have the courage. Because we act not as leaders but as politicians.
And as politicians we are simply afraid that someday humankind will call us to account. And we are leaving ourselves a way out, because what we say is that we never promised you anything. We never promised to end starvation. We said we would make every effort to overcome it. We never promised to stop climate change. We promised to intensify our cooperation to overcome climate change. How much time and paper and energy has been expended on all the iterations of “we are determined” and “we affirm our common interest in overcoming” and “we have agreed to significantly strengthen cooperation”?
If we really want to revitalize the United Nations, let us talk to one another simply and speak clearly, concretely and, most important, honestly and frankly. Then we will stop calling what happens in the General Assembly a debate. It is not a debate, because debate is a lively dialogue. It is an active dispute between differing parties. It is an opportunity to ask direct, frank questions. Take the example of another State’s issuance of its passports to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in the occupied territory of Ukraine. Is that not evidence of an international crime? Is it not proof of impunity and contempt for international law? Moreover, the Russian Federation itself has announced it officially. And it forces Ukrainian citizens to take part in Russian parliamentary elections.
And if the United Nation does not react effectively and strongly to that, is that not proof that it is too late to revitalize the United Nations? But I believe it is not. The United Nations must support those who want to change the world for the better. Today, Ukraine is presenting a number of initiatives, platforms and summits. Take just one, the Crimea Platform. It should be working under the auspices of the United Nations. If every nation had such an effective platform, approved by the United Nations, solving problems and working around the clock, we could revive the United Nations, because we would be reviving the faith of ordinary people in the United Nations.
I know that the United Nations is often criticized. But when we do that we are criticizing ourselves. The United Nations is not a building. The United Nations is our leaders. It was they who created the Organization, 76 years ago. Could they have predicted and anticipated everything? Of course not. Could they have imagined that the right of veto, a symbol that allowed one nation to cast a vote on behalf of all, would become a tool for blackmailing everyone? No. Does that mean that all is lost? Of course not. All of us, and therefore the United Nations, need to believe in ourselves again. The United Nations has long heard only criticism, such as the accusation that the United Nations can do nothing or, worst of all, that it has become a League of Nations. Today the United Nations is like a retired superhero who has forgotten what he used to be able to do. He considers himself a burden, a weak, frail, useless old man whose life has been in vain.
Instead, perhaps, the United Nations should remember something. It could recall that since 1981 more than 1 billion people have gained access to drinking water for the first time. Who explained to the wild world that everyone has rights and that they need to be protected? Who produced the first document in which those rights are laid out in detail? Who provides food to 90 million people in 83 countries around the world? Who was responsible for eradicating the shameful phenomenon of apartheid from the planet? Whose Blue Helmets have maintained and continue to maintain peace in dozens of countries? Who created UNESCO, which protects the Vatican, Versailles, the Acropolis and 1,154 unique cultural heritage sites? Who created UNICEF, which protects children in more than 190 countries? Children are the most valuable thing we have, and therefore the call to unite on their behalf cannot be banal or outdated. We must unite for the sake of children. They are the most important thing we have.
What do we all think? Let us show that we are determined to make every effort to strengthen our cooperation. And let us just do it, even without resolutions, declarations or aligning our positions. Let us get it done, as people, as nations, as the United Nations — as those who have made their choice. Either their actions will be filled with meaning or their seats will be empty. That is the price of our choice.