Mr. Chair,

The Delegation of Ukraine would like to express its appreciation over the job done by you and the members of Bureau at the helm of the Committee. 

We also would like to note the efforts of the Department of Global Communications under the able leadership of Under-Secretary-General Flemming. In the challenging information environment, the role of the Department in ensuring quality information, crisis communication and contributing to information integrity is essential.

Our task as the Committee is to continue providing guidance to the Department based on the threat assessment. We have recognized the spread of mis- and dis-information and hate speech among the most urgent threats. Disinformation and propaganda affect our efforts throughout the UN agenda, from sustainable development and climate action to human rights. Their impact on international peace and security is devastating.

Mr. Chair,

A week ago, Kharkiv, the second largest city of Ukraine, sustained a missile shelling by the Russian Federation – almost a daily reality for the city in close proximity to the border with Russia.

That time a Russian missile hit the local TV tower – the highest construction in the city with its 250 m length. As a result of the strike, the top half of the tower was collapsed.

Pictures of the TV tower broken in half have become a reminder of the critical role that Russia assigns to information warfare in its aggression toolbox. Yet another reminder, along with killed Ukrainian and foreign journalists; flooding of propaganda and hate speech from Russian state-run media; as well as burned Ukrainian books, destroyed Ukrainian media, arrests and tortures of Ukrainian media workers in the occupied parts of Ukraine.

My delegation has persistently reiterated that weaponization of information for aggressive purposes has been a security threat, whose detrimental impact must not be underestimated. A full-scale war in Europe with hundreds of thousands of victims would never be possible without propaganda and disinformation laying grounds to the invasion and atrocities.

We have to agree that the Committee’s vision of “a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order intended to strengthen peace and international understanding” remains far from being translated into reality.

We can hardly expect anything else when the Committee’s member has instrumentalized information to trigger and fuel the war of attrition. 

Mr. Chair,

The current Russian regime has taken much from the Third Reich. Similar level of militarization of society, similar substitution of journalism with propaganda, similar aggressive actions and similar justification of committed crimes.

There is, however, one significant difference. In the Third Reich, hatred served as a tool used in the interests of the Nazi ideology. In Russia, in its turn, hatred is an ideology itself, its centerpiece and its essence. If you remove hatred from the Russian rhetoric, you will find emptiness and chimera fakes.

It is a parallel reality, where Ukraine attacks a nuclear state, Ukrainians kill each other, destroy their own homes, flood their own territories, and are even ready to blow up their own nuclear power station. 

This is the parallel reality, where special war mosquitoes and birds are bred in secret bio-labs to identify and kill Russian people only. This is the parallel reality, where people of Jewish descent can simultaneously profess Nazi ideology, lead the terrorists of the "Islamic State" and worship Satan.

Frankly, if a novice author came to an editorial office with such a plot, they wouldn't just be kicked out but would also probably be recommended to take a mental health checkup. 

Unfortunately, in Russia, this balderdash has been translated for a multi-million audience for years in the sterile environment of total absence of independent voices. Putin’s regime has created this information bubble and aggressively keeps it. Those whom this regime considers a threat are simply being killed, including in prisons. 

[The Russian media are full of hate speech towards Ukraine and Ukrainians since the beginning of the aggression. As follows from the Concluding observations on the combined 25th and 26th periodic reports of the Russian Federation, issued by the Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination on June 1, 2023, the CERD was deeply concerned about “Incitement to racial hatred and propagation of racist stereotypes against ethnic Ukrainians, in particular on State-owned radio and television networks, on the Internet and in social media, as well as by public figures and government officials, and the lack of information on investigations, prosecutions, convictions and sanctions for such acts.”]

It is even more alarming that now Russia not only continues to spread fakes about Ukraine, but focuses on direct calls to kill all Ukrainians without exception and to raze Ukrainian cities to the ground “block by block.” 

From the very beginning the primary goal of the Russian war propaganda has been to motivate Russian people to join the occupation army, operating in Ukraine. Adding the above calls to their playbooks, the Russian state-owned media send to all Russian soldiers, both current and future, a clear message of impunity for all war crimes and crimes against humanity they have committed and will commit in Ukraine.  

So, no more narratives about "liberation of a brotherly nation." Now, Moscow seems to align its words with its deeds and Russian propagandists describe what they dream of doing with Ukraine. 

[I quote] “The whole of Ukraine will be methodically turned into a sanitary zone... These are areas where there is no electricity, where bridges and transport interchanges are broken, where the railway does not operate, where large cities are not able to maintain normal life activities because the water supply and sewage system do not work there… hospitals do not work properly… there has been an absolutely complete consensus around the idea that Ukraine should be dismantled into bricks so that there is nothing left there at all…". Said by so-called journalist Sergey Mardan, working for one of the biggest Russian newspapers “Komsomolskaya Pravda” and several radio stations.

Another quote “Kharkiv must be wiped off the face of the Earth, just so that there are no illusions. But we need to start with Kyiv… Completely wipe it off so that nothing remains, just radioactive dust”. This is Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most popular anchors at the Russian state TV.

We note that the increasing threat of Russian propaganda is also being recognized in other countries. For a long time, Russia has used this leverage to interfere in the internal affairs in different countries throughout the globe, undermine democratic processes, in particular elections, provoke public unrests and negative sentiments towards third countries. All this has nothing in common with freedom of media and freedom of information, and thus require a strong and principled response.

Distinguished colleagues,

It is also important to honour those media workers who became victims to the Russian invasion. The Ukrainian NGO “Institute of Mass Information” registered 589 crimes against media and journalists, committed by Russia since its large-scale invasion in Ukraine. 76 media workers were killed, including 10 journalists – while performing their professional duties.

14 journalists went missing, 25 were abducted by the Russian troops, 34 were wounded. 

[Besides, 234 media outlets were closed down due to Russia’s invasion, 19 editorial offices were seized or ruined by Russia, 19 TV towers were shelled, 29 cases of switching off the Ukrainian broadcasting were registered.

We also remain deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation with the freedom of expression and the work of journalists in the occupied Ukraine’s Crimea.]

Mr. Chair,

My delegation will not exercise at the end of the general debate its right of reply to the statement made by Russia yesterday. Instead, I’ll say a couple of words now.  

This statement has been a vivid example of those practices that our Committee is mandated to counter – disinformation, misinformation and hate speech.

We have already drawn the attention of the Committee to the information technology Russia broadly applies in producing war-related propaganda – when an aggressor pretends to be a victim, while a real victim is being blamed for everything. 

The tactic is very simple - to overburden the audience with plenty of unsubstantiated allegations of general nature, without any details. For instance, I quote the Russian delegation, “many opponents were brought to unknown locations and their fate is unknown”. Locations unknown, fate unknown, names unknown.

At the same time, in line with the classic propaganda technics, Russian statements contain, along with general allegations, some fact-alike information, in particular list of names, to lend credibility to these statements. 

And I would like to dwell on this in more detail.

In particular, the Russian delegation has again mentioned Vladlen Tatarsky as a “victim”. 

Let me recall therefore, who was this person in reality. He was serving his sentence for a bank robbery in Donbas when the territory was occupied by Russia and Tatarsky, along with other criminals, was freed and joined the Russian occupation forces.

In September 2022, Tatarsky formulated his credo in a video recorded in the Kremlin, after the “ceremony of signing the so-called “treaties of accession of new territories to Russia”. I quote “We will kill everyone, we will rob everyone who needs to be robbed. Everything will be the way we love”.

Indeed, a real face of the Russian “journalism” and  very similar to modus operandi of the notorious Wagner Group. Tatarsky was reportedly close to Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner, and upon the instructions of the latter, criticized the Russian military command. For this, perhaps, he paid with his life in April 2023. His patron, as it is known, was eliminated in Russia several months later.

What is even more disgusting is inclusion to the list of "victims" Zakhar Prilepin, whom the Russian representative called a “writer and public figure”. Let’s see how Prilepin portrayed himself in a video interview with the YouTube channel "Redaktsiya". It's easy to find online. I quote "I commanded a combat unit that killed people in large numbers. None of the units from the Donetsk battalions could compare to my battalion by any measure. All we did was a complete lawlessness." 

It should be noted that Prilepin was in Donbas not as a writer or public figure, but as a "deputy commander of the Russian special military unit Oplot”. Again, that is how he described his role. So, shall we tolerate the Russian attempts to make the Committee address the fate of Russian military commanders, who do not even hide their crimes and their role as combatants. It is a clear attempt to misuse the Committee’s mandate.

To save the time, I will not go in detail with regard to other names and allegations circulated yesterday by the Russian Federation, but the situation with other so-called facts is the similar to the above-mentioned cases.

Mr. Chair, 

This serves as a solid proof of the relevance and urgency of the provision, included to the annual UNGA Resolutions “Question relating to information: UN global communication policies and activities” since 2022, on condemnation of “all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

Ukraine believes that a global and systemic approach is required to tackle all attempts to falsify information and to use it as a tool for legitimizing violations of the UN Charter and aggressive wars, as well as for undermining public safety, peace and security. 

Disinformation and propaganda of war, as well as those engaged in these activities, should be clearly dissociated from professional journalism and journalists. 

There is a particular role of both the Committee and the Department of Global Communication is addressing the aggressive war propaganda and incitement of hatred, and we encourage both to make full use of all existing instruments within the respective mandates in line with the thematic UNGA Resolutions.

Thank you.