Mister President,

My delegation would like to express sincere gratitude to you for organizing this high level debate on the role of youth in countering violent extremism and promoting peace. The extremism and terrorism nowadays impose serious threat to peace, security and stability in the world.

We fully agree with the necessity to intensify our common work in order to address this issue and place youth at the center of the global agenda to counter violent extremism.

Radicalization among youth should be prevented and stopped. Yet the achievement of this goal is possible only through concrete strategies aimed at consolidating all existing efforts and strengthening close cooperation among all stakeholders.

The United Nations, in particular the Security Council, as well as others UN bodies and entities, the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth have to play a key role in prevention of the violent extremism. Of high importance in this regard is to ensure effective implementation of the Security Council resolutions 1624 (2005) and 2178 (2014).

Unfortunately, young people constitute one of the strata most vulnerable to the factors leading to radicalism and extremism. There are many such factors, yet one of the most important, especially vis-à-vis youth, is propaganda. Violent extremist groups actively exploit this tool through media and social networks.

In our opinion, the most dangerous situation emerges when manipulative propaganda is elevated to the rank of one of the priorities at the state level.

It is for more than a year that Ukraine has been suffering from the aggression of its big neighbor – the Russian Federation. Russia temporarily occupied and made an attempt at annexation of a part of the territory of Ukraine – Autonomous Republic of Crimea – and continues hostile and subversive actions against our country in Donbas.

Still the military component of the aggression is far from being the most dangerous one. Fierce deceitful propaganda performed by the state-controlled Russian media and through numerous other means is one of the key elements of the ongoing aggression against Ukraine.

International community has to be alarmed by the fact that this Soviet-style propaganda machine works very well first and foremost on youth. There are reported cases of participation of teenagers in the activity of the pro-Russian terrorist gangs in certain areas of the East of Ukraine. Some of them are 15 years old and even younger. There is also credible information that the Russia-coordinated and sponsored terrorist groups are trying to force students to their ranks using different means of influence.

Moreover, there are testimonies that such means as promising to annul criminal record or to repay a loan are practiced in the campaign in Russia of recruiting the mercenaries into the terrorist gangs operating in Donbas. Common victims of this recruiting campaign are young people.

Mister President,

Apart from consolidated efforts to eliminate the social, economic, cultural, religious and other grounds for the spread of violent extremism among the youth, the United Nations has to take the combat of propaganda of intolerance and hate to a new level.

To reach this goal we might need to explore ways of establishing an international mechanism to reveal such facts in real time, condemn them and, above all – to identify the means of discouraging those spreading such propaganda.

As a country experiencing firsthand grave consequences of this vicious propaganda coming from its neighbour, Ukraine is ready to actively contribute to taking forward this initiative.

Thank you.