Mr. President,

Dear Members of the Security Council,

Thank you for convening this meeting.

I would like to start with addressing my deep sorrow and sincere condolences to all the missions whose citizens were killed in the terrible crash of Boeing 777 of Malaysian airlines.

Ukraine shares the pain of the loss and grieves with the bereaved families and friends, and extends its profound sympathy to those affected by the accident.

Today whole Ukraine is mourning. Ukrainians are approaching the embassies of Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Philippines and Canada, in order to lay down flowers and express their sorrow.

The Ukrainian authorities have already addressed international organizations like ICAO, Interpol and others to undertake a thorough international investigation into the accident.

We believe that impartial investigation will bring the truth and all perpetrators will be punished internationally.

Yesterday, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko announced basic version of what has happened with Boeing.

He stated that it was an act of terror. His position is based on the coinciding data from different intelligence and open sources.

These data are:

·         The aircraft was shot down above the territory temporary controlled by terrorists.

·         Several days before, around the same location 3 Ukrainian jets were shot down and terrorists leaders took responsibility for these acts

·         Interception of telephone conversations between the terrorists leaders and with their coordinator, the Russian Military intelligence colonel Vasiliy Geranin confirms that terrorists are standing behind this crime.

·         Immediately after the crash military leader of the terrorists Igor Girkin (Strelkov) commented boasting in social network on having shot down, what he believed was the Ukrainian jet, by saying: “In Torez Ukrainian An-26 was shot down, its crashes are lying somewhere near the coal mine “Progress”. We have warned everyone: do not fly in our skies.”

·         To target and shot down a plane on such a high altitude of 10,000 meters would only be possible using sophisticated anti-aircraft system, such as BUK or similar. It is confirmed both from radio interceptions of terrorist leaders and by visual photo and video recording got from citizens of the local cities that terrorists have at least 1 BUK system.

·         The question is where they got this from sophisticated air defense systems from?

·         Again the interceptions, photos and confessions of detained terrorists, including Russian citizens who were going to join terrorists as experts in adjustment of fire, are telling that the BUK systems arrived from Russia.

 

All these and other evidence and materials will be provided to the international investigation.

This tragedy would not have been possible if Russia did not support the terrorist and did not provide sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles systems were not supplied to terrorists from Russia.

Ukrainian Mission to the UN many times addressed the Security Council and all UN member-states with information about Russia supporting the terrorists in Eastern Ukraine. Just yesterday, we presented new proofs to UN accredited media.

RUSSIAN PARTICIPATION FACTS

The following are some of the most evident facts proving Russia’s direct involvement into the process of destabilization of the inner political situation in the East of Ukraine. This gets more and more evident day by day to the nationals of my country as well as to our international partners.

RUSSIAN NATIONALS DIRECTLY PARTICIPATE IN THE DESTABILIZATION OF THE SITUATION IN EASTERN UKRAINE

The organizations called “Donetsk People's Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic” have been recognized as terrorist organizations by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.

Since 4 July 2014 Russian national Marat Bashurov has been serving as “Prime Minister of Luhansk People’s Republic” while another Russian citizen Oleksandr Boroday is the “Prime Minister of Donetsk People's Republic”. Ihor Strelkov (Girkin), the terrorists commander spreading terror in the Donetsk region, a criminal running the armed groups of the “Donetsk People's Republic” is also a Russian national, a retired colonel of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and a professional saboteur, Russian citizen Vladimir Antiufeyev is the so-called “vice-prime-minister of Donetsk People’s Republic”.  

Recruiting efforts for illegal armed groups fighters are expanding inside Russia and they are looking for volunteers with experience operating heavy weapons such as tanks and air defenses.

Russia has allowed establishing a recruiting office in Moscow and Rostov, which are openly operating on recruiting and sending Russian nationals to Eastern regions of Ukraine.

Numerous groups of the Russian para-military formations Russian Cossacks are actively supporting terrorists in spreading terror and chaos in the Eastern Ukraine. According to the Russian legislation the Russian Cossacks constitute a part of Russia's armed forces (Paragraph 2, Article 5 of the Federal Law of 8 December 2005). Throughout the whole period of this artificially created conflict supported by Russia it has never publicly called on its citizens to refrain from joining illegal armed groups on the territory of Ukraine. This fact speaks for itself.

Mr. President,

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SUPPLIES HEAVY WEAPONS TO ILLEGAL ARMED GROUPS IN EASTERN UKRAINE 

Numerous supplies of the weapons of the Russian origin used by the terrorists in Donbass which has been documented by the Ukrainian intelligence agencies, media and general public are no longer a secret to anyone. A large exhibition of the confiscated modern weapons withdrawn by the Ukrainian military forces from the terrorist groups, took place in Kyiv few days ago. In most cases actual military units of the Russian armed forces are specified as the origin of those weapons.

Russia continues to accumulate significant amounts of equipment at a deployment site along the Ukrainian border. This equipment includes Russian military tanks, as well as armored vehicles, multiple rocket launchers, artillery, and air defense systems. Russia has almost doubled the number of tanks, armored vehicles, and rocket launchers and more advanced air defense systems on its side of the border, from where it delivers it into Ukrainian territory.

Russia has recently transferred tanks, multiple rocket launchers and artillery to the illegal armed groups in Eastern Ukraine and that over the weekend many military vehicles illegally crossed the border.

Videos of terrorists’ military convoys show that Russia in the past week alone has supplied the militants with at least two-dozen additional armored vehicles and artillery pieces and about as many military trucks.

Publicly available videos posted on July 14 of a convoy on the road to Donetsk revealed at least five T-64 tanks, four BMP-2 armored personnel carriers (APC), BM-21 multiple rocket launchers, three towed antitank guns, two ZU 23-2 antiaircraft guns, and probably a 2B16 mortar.

A video of Krasnodon, near the Izvaryne border crossing, on 11 July showed two BTR armored personnel carriers, two antitank guns, and various trucks on a road heading in a westerly direction towards Donetsk.

A video filmed in Donetsk on 11 July showed a convoy of three BMD-2 APCs, two BMPs, one 2S9 self-propelled gun, and a BTR-60 APC.

In addition, after recapturing several Ukrainian cities last weekend, Ukrainian officials discovered caches of weapons that came from Russia, including MANPADS, mines, grenades, MREs, vehicles, and a pontoon bridge.

Ukrainian forces have discovered large amounts of other Russian-provided military equipment, including accompanying documentation verifying the Russian origin of said equipment, in the areas they have liberated from the separatists.

Mr. President,

RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES COMMIT ARMED PROVOCATIONS ON THE UKRAINIAN-RUSSIAN BORDER

The situation on the Ukrainian-Russian State border has significantly deteriorated in the recent days as a result of systematic violations coming from the Russian side of the border, as well as provocative actions by armed terrorist groups in the pre-border areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

Several times a day columns of military vehicles and Russian mercenaries undertake attempts to break through the Ukrainian State border from the side of Russia. These attempts are actively facilitated by Russian border protection units. Anti-terrorist forces in Ukraine were repeatedly shelled from the territory of Russia. Ukraine has all documented evidences of those facts for the appropriate international response.

Number of provocations on the Ukrainian-Russian State border has increased substantially. Illegal armed groupings systematically fire towards the territory of Russia in order to create false image of Ukrainian military firing. This has caused the death of a Russian citizen. The Russian side accused the Armed Forces of Ukraine in shelling on June 28 this year the territory of Russia, namely Vasetskaya village Mine Number 24 of Krasnosulynsky District of Rostov region, and border checkpoint "Gukovo".  

Ukrainian Armed Forces have NEVER attacked or fired to the territory of Russia. All such provocations are committed by pro-Russian terrorists in order to find grounds for further escalation.

Mr.President,

The following are the most recent cases of Russian actions on the border:

On 2 July an organized group of gunmen illegally crossed the Russian-Ukrainian State border and attacked air defense unit near the settlement of Milove in Luhansk region, Ukraine using mortar weapons. Several shots were made by the above organized group in the direction of the checkpoint “Novoshakhtinsk” located on the territory of the Russian Federation.

On 3 July an organized group of gunmen arrived at the State border line from the territory of the Russian Federation and, using mortar and grenade weapons, attacked checkpoint "Dovzhansky" in Ukraine. As a result of these criminal actions one Ukrainian soldier was killed and twelve more were wounded.

On 9 July six helicopters MI-8, MI-17 and MI-24 of the Russian Armed Forces violated Ukraine’s State border in Stanichno-Luhansk and Illivka settlements of Luhansk oblast.

On 10 July Russian Armed Forces helicopter KA-52 of crossed the border of Ukraine in Blahovischenka settlement of the Luhansk region.

On 11 July three drones were identified coming to the territory of Ukraine through the Russian-Ukrainian State border from settlements Nozdrivka and Titovka, Russia.

On 12 July a mortar attack from the area of Kuybysheve (Rostov Region, Russian Federation) took place against the Ukrainian checkpoint "Marinivka". In addition, there were several violations of Ukraine’s airspace by unmanned aircrafts that flew from Russia.

On 16 July several amateur videos were recorded by Russian civilians near town of Gukovo (Rostov region, Russian Federation) of Russian multiple-rocket launchers “Grad” firing multiple rockets towards Ukrainian territory. This last case is the clearest evidence of direct Russian military actions against Ukraine.

On 16 July around 19:00 Ukrainian Air Force aircraft “Suhoi-25” was attacked and shot down by a rocket fired from the Russian Air Force Mig-29 aircraft (from 1^st Air Force division based in Rostov region).  Ukrainian pilot survived, having witnessed the attack. The available radio interception evidence Russian Air Force communication station with the aircraft.

Mr. President,

RUSSIA CONTINUES TO REDEPLOY NEW FORCES EXTREMELY CLOSE TO THE UKRAINIAN BORDER.

Significant number of additional Russian military units are in the process of deploying to the Ukrainian border.

In the period of July 11-14 groupings of the Russian Armed Forces in the border regions of Ukraine were increasing in numbers. At the direction of Bryansk - Chernihiv in the area of Klimov (20 km from the state border of Ukraine) the deployment of battalion tactical group of 32 Infantry Brigade (Shilovo) was taking place, reinforced by battalion of 120 Artillery Brigade (Jurga). Transfer of 31 separate landing assault brigade of airborne troops of the Russian Armed Forces started towards Homutovka (Kursk region, 15 km from Ukrainian border).

500 troops, 10 tanks, 30 armored vehicles, 18 artillery systems, 7 missile systems were deployed in the direction of Belgorod - Kharkov. Furthermore, in the specified direction continues the deployment of battalion tactical group of 41 Army.

Increase of Russian Armed Forced groups has been taking place on the direction of Rostov-on-Don - Donetsk to the border areas of Ukraine, with the transfer of battalion tactical groups of tanks, multiple rocket launchers, artillery and troops of 7 Russian landing assault division and others.

Russian Armed Forces group in the occupied territory of Crimea is being increased by the deployment of new units. Relocation to the northern part of the peninsula (towards Ukrainian territory) of the self-propelled artillery (152-mm howitzers 2S19 "MSTA-S") and multiple rocket launchers (122-mm MLRS "Grad") divisions has been carried out.

As of July 14, total number of the Russian Armed Forces groups in the regions bordering with Ukraine has been significantly increased and comprises 33 battalion tactical groups, totally of at least 40,200 troops;

directly around Ukraine (including Transnistria) - up to 18,500 troops;

in the occupied territory of  Crimea – up to 21,700 troops. 

Those and similar actions constitute a flagrant violation by Russia of its obligations under the UN Charter and other universally recognized principles and norms of international law. Those actions are incompatible with the obligations of the Russian Federation under the Geneva agreements of 17 April and the Berlin Declaration of 2 June.

UKRAINE demands that the Russian side immediately cease provocations on the State border of Ukraine, stop hindering efforts of the Ukrainian side and the international community to put an end to terrorism and other violence in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, return to the President Poroshenko’s Peace Plan, withdraw its forces from Ukrainian border and stop threatening peace and security in our country, region and the world as a whole.

 

Thank you