Statement by the Delegation of Ukraine at the UN Security Council meeting on “Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine”

(18 June 2024)

Mr. President, distinguished members of the Security Council,

I would like to thank Under-Secretary-General DiCarlo for her briefing and participation in the High-Level Summit on Peace for Ukraine as a representative of the UN Secretariat in the observer status.

I also recognize the continued occupation of the seat of the Soviet Union by the dictator’s envoy.

His country was not present at the Peace Summit as it remains unwilling to give up the language of ultimatums, and to accept and implement the language of international law and the UN Charter.

The latter was the basis and the guiding principle for the representatives of 100 countries and international organizations from across the globe, assembled in Switzerland on 15-16 June 2024.

Almost two-thirds were represented at the highest level. The Summit allowed each of the participants to demonstrate global leadership. Essentially, this event is the first step towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace based on the UN Charter and the core principles of international law.

As follows from the Joint Communiqué on a Peace Framework, the Summit was built on previous discussions that have taken place based on Ukraine’s Peace Formula and other peace proposals which are in line with international law, including the United Nations Charter.

During the Summit, participants agreed on a common position on three points: food security, nuclear security, and the release of all captured and deported Ukrainians, adults and children, abducted by Russia.

The key principles of these elements for a just and sustainable peace are set out in the Joint Communiqué on a Peace Framework. In this document, the Summit participants emphasized that the use of nuclear energy and nuclear installations must be safe, secured, safe-guarded and environmentally sound, and that Ukrainian nuclear power plants and installations, including Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, must operate safely and securely under full sovereign control of Ukraine and under the supervision of the IAEA.

The Joint Communiqué also contains a clause on the uninterrupted manufacturing and supply of food products. Attacks on merchant ships, civilian ports and civilian port infrastructure are unacceptable. The Communiqué emphasizes that food security must not be weaponized in any way.

POWs must be released through a full exchange, and all deported and illegally displaced Ukrainian children and civilians must be returned to Ukraine.

Mr.President,

Since the early stages of preparation of the Summit, we have been asked why Russia was not there. As we have already said, Russia prefers aggressive ultimatums to returning to the tenets of international law. Moreover, Russia labels as ultimatums our calls to implement the UN Charter and respect its principles.

Our stance on attempts to appease the aggressor under current circumstances is clear and well known. Efforts at appeasement won’t work now, just as they failed to work in the past, notably in 1938-1939.

We remember well the efforts made then to prevent world war through appeasement.  Democratic states took the unprecedented step of signing the Munich Agreement with the leaders of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Let us remember the hopeful headlines and articles from the world press on September 30, 1938, which stated, and I quote, "never was a simpler document issued in history with consequences more far-reaching or more pregnant with hope. If the two men who issued it stick to their resolves, the peace of Europe seems assured for a generation at least."

The then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain echoed these hopeful sentiments, declaring at the airport upon his return from Munich, and I quote, "I have returned from Germany with peace for our time."

Indeed, just like today, countries across the world did not want, and I quote Chamberlain again, “digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.”

Leaders around the world did everything to appease Hitler by allowing him to annex the region of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, the “far-away country”, in return for nothing more consequential than a promise that this would be his last territorial demand.

This brings me to recall how in 2014 we were persuaded that the world did not want confrontation with Russia, and the temporary occupation and attempted annexation of territories of Ukraine including Crimea was the last territorial grab that Russia needed.

The result of all attempts to appease the aggressor in 1938 is well known. The promise of military support for Czechoslovakia was withdrawn, the agreement was signed, and Czechoslovakia, which had mobilized 1.5 million soldiers and was ready to fight, was not even invited to the conference in Munich. Czechoslovakian representatives were only informed of the essence of the agreement.

 So, was peace finally preserved? I don't think this Chamber needs to be reminded of the ensuing developments. The Sudetenland was annexed, less than two months later the Kristallnacht occurred in Germany, six months after Munich the whole of Czechoslovakia was occupied, and less than a year after Munich World War II began.

Churchill's warning, made after the Munich Conference, came true, [I quote] “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”

And the U.S. President, who had previously urged Hitler to seek a peaceful resolution, was now sending entirely different messages and saying that “for too many years we lived on pious hopes that aggressor and warlike nations would learn and understand and carry out the doctrine of purely voluntary peace. The well-intentioned but ill-fated experiments of former years did not work.”

And let's recall now how the Allies, who once wanted to prevent war through these well-intentioned but ill-fated experiments, came to final arrangements as to how the war should be ended. As soon as they learned the bitter lesson that appeasement and territorial sacrifices would not prevent bloodshed, they gathered for the First Inter-Allied Conference in London in June 1941. This time, neither Hitler nor Mussolini were present at the conference.

It is noteworthy that at this first conference, the Allies focused on three key topics, although the scope of critical issues to be addressed was much broader. Not only did the Allies pledge to assist one another in the war, but also promised not to enter into any separate peace, and that there could be no peace until the threat of Axis domination had passed.

So, as you see, we have been through all this before. They tried appeasement and territorial gifts. They rejoiced over signed papers with hollow promises from the aggressors. And then the world faced the atrocities of the war, with tens of millions dead, with genocide, and with massive destruction in many “near” and “far-away” countries.   

Last Friday, in this Chamber, the Russian briefer threatened us with a repetition of the Caribbean crisis, looking at the same time fully unaware of what party to conflict was a nuclear power and how this state uses its nuclear weapons for blackmail and intimidation, including by transferring them to other countries. And it is worth recalling what U.S. President Kennedy said while explaining his decision to implement a quarantine, [and I quote] “the 1930s taught us a clear lesson: Aggressive conduct, if allowed to grow unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war.” A world leader’s words which all aggressors today should be reminded of.

Mr.President,

Between the first Allies’ conference in June 1941 and the UN Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in April-June 1945, more than two dozen other high-level conferences, including Tehran and Yalta to name but two, were held and again neither Hitler nor Mussolini were among their participants. 

Over these years, not only were victories achieved on the battlefield, but a significant amount of work was also done at the negotiating table. And if this work had not been done, there would be no UN, no UN Charter, nor this Security Council meeting.

Therefore, it is essential that peace-loving nations continue their work on a Peace Framework. The Summit in Switzerland has made a start on this work. We urge all those who have not yet joined this process to actively engage and contribute to the restoration of a just peace.

We would like the proposals developed by other countries to be a part of our dialogue, rather than conveyed through media. Every country and every leader has the right to their own position, without imposing it on others. We need to respect each other.

Ukraine will never be an object of someone else’s plans. It is not 1938 either here, or outside this Chamber.

The Joint Communiqué of the Summit in Switzerland has been open for joining by all UN Member States. We call on all peace-loving nations to join the strong group of those Member States and international organizations who have already supported this document, thus contributing to upholding the UN Charter and its principles, underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine, as envisaged by the UNGA Resolution ES/11-6 of 23 February 2023.

As the President of Ukraine said at the Peace Summit, “there is no need to reinvent the wheel when the UN Charter already defines the foundations of peace and normal coexistence of peoples. So, we just have to return to them.”

A comprehensive, just and lasting peace is all that Ukraine needs. I am convinced that this is our shared aspiration and I encourage all of you to work together to make this vision a reality.

I thank you.