Mr. President,
I would like to very warmly thank our Western colleagues for convening this Security Council briefing on Ukraine. A huge corruption scandal has just erupted there, incriminating top officials of the Kiev regime. This came as no surprise to us. At almost every meeting, we have told you that you are dealing with a thieving, corrupt cabal profiting from war at your expense. And it is not about something secret that incidentally came to light. It was so obvious that only a blind could fail to notice it.
One feel tempted here to ask a question from one well-known skit that would be familiar to both Russians and Ukrainians: “Where’s the money?” – “What money?”
On November 10, following a series of searches, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) reported the discovery of large-scale embezzlement at Energoatom, which is the operator of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. According to the investigation materials, the organizer and main beneficiary of the illegal enrichment scheme was Timur Mindich, a long-time associate of Zelensky. NABU claims that in just one year, members of the criminal network laundered about $100 million through kickbacks. The same corruption scheme was applied in the defense sector.
The true scale of this scandal is something that we can only guess at, but as we hear, this is only the tip of the iceberg. At today’s meting, I have not heard anyone say a word about that.
Meanwhile, Zelensky continues to tour far and wide across Europe, begging for money and weapons for him himself and his entourage to benefit from that. But Europe has no money left for Ukraine. Europe needs to rearm its own armies to prepare, as they hysterically clamor, for war with Russia in 2030. And where can they get money for Ukraine? Well, this money can be stolen. It can be stolen for example from Russia’s sovereign assets. However, this hasn’t worked out so far.
There is also another option. Why not whip up anti-Russian hysteria to scare and unnerve impressionable Europeans? For example, it can be done by promoting the narrative about Russian drones allegedly entering airspace. And UK Defense Secretary John Healey dispatched British fighter jets and a frigate to monitor the Russian oceanographic vessel Yantar. No sooner had the incident involving damage to railway tracks in Poland occurred (committed by two Ukrainians, as the Polish authorities themselves claim) than Warsaw announced, clearly without showing any evidence, that the trail led to Russia, because it was an “act of state terrorism” carried out by Ukrainians working for Russian special services. What really astounds us is how quickly the Polish authorities arrived at such conclusions. After all, we remember well who was the first to extend the gratitude to the US, namely the Biden administration, for the attack on Nord Stream – It was Poland’s current foreign minister, Mr. Sikorski.
Now let’s turn to the situation on the ground.
The situation on the front for the Ukrainian army remains dire, if not catastrophic. Russian troops are successfully advancing on essentially all fronts. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, over the past week, we liberated a number of towns and villages in the Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Zaporozhye regions, as well as in the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic (DPR). Ukrainian military equipment, including Neptune missiles launchers and US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, has been systematically destroyed along with Ukrainian army’s command posts, fortifications, armored vehicles, ammunition depots and drone control centers; supply lines have also been disrupted. Ukrainian units continue to suffer heavy losses and are rapidly losing their fighting capability.
Ukrainian troops are stymied in major strategic hubs, such as Krasnoarmeisk (formerly Pokrovsk) and Dimitrov. Kupyansk has been liberated. Kiev denies this in every possible way, claiming that all this is merely Russian propaganda. In late October, President Vladimir Putin proposed granting unhindered access to the area for foreign journalists, including Ukrainian ones, so that they could see firsthand how the situation is unfolding. The Russian command was ready to suspend hostilities for 5-6 hours to create safe corridors for the press. However, Kiev, of course, refused. Major Western media outlets and journalists’ associations also remained silent. Indeed, why know the truth that would dispel the myths about Ukraine’s invincible army, which Zelensky disseminated so painstakingly in the West?
The failures of Ukraine’s army are compounded by very brutal actions against civilians remaining in contested cities. For Ukrainian nationalists, they are the so-called “awaiters,” or those who want to stay and then come over to the Russian side. On November 14, seven civilians were reported killed in the DPR by targeted Ukrainian drone and mortar attacks – namely the priest of the church in the village of Aleksandro-Kalinovo, his wife, and a family of parishioners who were trying to evacuate. The people were methodically hunted down, and then their fellow villagers were prevented from collecting and burying the bodies of the perished, because Ukrainian soldiers began to target them with drones. Ukrainian army uses civilians as human shields, place command posts in private homes, deploy air defense systems in residential areas, and conduct military operations in the centers of densely populated cities, and these facts are now also confirmed by foreign journalists, who can hardly be suspected of being pro-Russian. But deliberate killing of individual civilians fleeing the combat zone is beyond evil, let alone humanitarian law.
Between October 20 and November 16, 307 Russian civilians were harmed by Ukrainian shelling, with 260 people wounded (including 20 minors) and 47 killed (including two children). In total, at least 13,900 rounds of ammunition were fired at civilian targets on Russian territory over this period. Villages in the Lugansk and Dontesk Peoples Republics, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, and Moscow regions were hit, as well as the cities of Saratov, Novorossiysk, and Volgograd.
However, the UN Secretary-General and his spokesperson show neither courage to speak about this nor sympathy for the civilians who have been killed and injured. Instead, they readily “strongly condemn” all Russian strikes relying on any information, be it verified or not verified, provided to them by the Resident Coordinator in Ukraine, Mr. Shmale.
We are not at war with Ukrainian civilians. Our armed forces are acting with the utmost responsibility, delivering high-precision strikes exclusively on military targets and Ukraine’s transport and energy infrastructure.
According to leaked military documents, Ukraine’s armed forces have lost more than 1.7 million servicemen since the start of the special operation, with more than 600,000 lost this year alone as of August. The huge irrecoverable losses among the military personnel are indirectly confirmed by the body exchanges between Russia and Ukraine – we hand over thousands of Ukrainian soldiers remains and receive only 20-30 bodies in return. It is clear why Ukrainian troops under such conditions are fleeing the battlefield en masse. In October alone, a record 21,000 soldiers deserted, which is the equivalent of four brigades.
To replenish the losses, Ukraine has been conducting mobilization, which is compounded by unprecedented violence. Borders are closed, bank accounts are frozen, driver’s licenses are suspended, and people are simply being grabbed off the streets. Ukrainian propagandists are trying to present this as “Russian fake news”, but the international media could not ignore one unexpected but very telling incident. In early November, Angelina Jolie visited Ukraine, and her bodyguard was detained before her very eyes and taken to a draft center for verification. Just a couple of weeks before this incident, the same thing happened to a Ukrainian journalist working with British reporters from The Sun, he was mobilized. Meanwhile, there are ongoing discussions about lowering the draft age from 25 to 22. On November 12, Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko voiced this idea in his interview with Politico. Very soon we will have there a sort of “Hitler Youth.”
Mr. President,
Despite the encirclement of a significant number of Ukrainian troops, massive losses, forced mobilization, and threats to civilians, the head of the Kiev regime forbids acknowledging the loss of cities, orders his troops to hold their positions “until the last soldier,” and bans retreat. This policy by the Ukrainian leadership has nothing to do with military reality and is purely political in nature. Zelensky wants to show his Western sponsors that the front is holding, because he counts on continued funding for his war with Russia. He needs billions of dollars to keep the war going for him and his cronies to line their pockets and stay in power.
At the same time, Kiev is crying out for a ceasefire. We hear also Zelensky’s European accomplices saying the same thing. The price of these calls is very obvious to us. They need the so-called “immediate” and “urgent” ceasefire only to ensure that the Ukraine’s army, suffering defeat after defeat, can get a long-awaited “breather.”
As for the hypocritical appeals for peace from our former European partners, neither Zelensky regime nor his mentors seek peace – escalation serves their interests. Just last week, Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister, Mr. Kislitsa, whom you know well, said outright that Kiev had officially suspended peace talks with Moscow. In fact, it was back in the summer when the Ukrainian delegation stopped responding to Russia’s proposals, including those concerning the creation of working groups on political, humanitarian, and military issues. As for the current statements made by Zelensky from Istanbul and European capitals, they are nothing but an attempt to divert attention from a monstrous corruption scandal. From day one, we have been clearly stating the goals of the special military operation. A non-aligned status of Ukraine, its denazification, an end to the persecution of all things Russian, and respect for the rights of all citizens living there. However, we do not see any genuine desire on Kiev’s part to sit down at the negotiating table to discuss key aspects of resolving the Ukrainian crisis.
Mr. President,
In conclusion, we would like to reiterate our objection in principle to having at today’s meeting so many delegations participating under Rules 37 and 39. Apart from Ukraine, there are six such delegations today, and all of them are members or allies of NATO and the EU – guided by strict bloc discipline, they bring absolutely no “added value” to the discussion. Every time, these delegations waste the Council’s precious time by reading out essentially the same hackneyed mantras, which are practically identical to the statement of the EU representative. We are categorically against turning Security Council meetings into talk shows for them to execute their playbook and brainwash their domestic audience. We believe that such an approach undermines the Council’s credibility.
Thank you.
