Statement by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly in New York

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Ukraine as a cofounder of the UNO knows the reason why we established this distinguished organization. For peace and stability. Do we have this peace and stability? No. And our global aim and global target is to do everything we can to protect our citizens, and to deliver peace to our nations.

The global agenda today consists of a number of things. Everyone mentioned ISIL, everyone mentioned Ebola, and everyone mentioned Ukraine. Frankly speaking, I would be happy not to be in this role. But we are the country that knows what terrorism means not by words, but in deeds, in practice.

Let me remind you the origin of the conflict that evolves in Ukraine. Is it a domestic conflict? No. that’s true that my country has differences. But every country has differences. And we are ready to handle and to tackle these differences inside of the country. But the thing is that the origin of the conflict is an invasion that was made by Russian Federation.

A P5 member violated the UN Charter, which is absolutely and entirely unacceptable for the permanent UN Security Council member. It’s better for Russia to be an “insecurity” member rather than security one.

20 years ago Ukraine abandoned nuclear weapon. We possessed the third biggest arsenal in the world. As we relinquished our nuclear power arsenal, in Budapest Ukraine got guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty.  And Russia was a co-signer and co-contributor of this memorandum. Instead of security guarantees in 20 years we received Russian military boots on Ukrainian soil.

It seems it’s difficult to convince another county to stop nuclear proliferation. We are committed to our nuclear non-proliferation program, but we need to get guarantees of our territorial integrity and security and independence.

Few months ago RF annexed Crimea. One country which is the UN member and P5 member, one country which is armed to teeth, just decided to grab the land of independent Ukraine. And let me command the efforts of UN member states that overwhelmingly supported the resolution that supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and condemns an illegal annexation of Crimea by the RF.

And they moved further. For today we can state that Russian troops are deployed in the East of Ukraine.

RF violated a number of bilateral and multilateral international agreements – starting with the UN Charter, and ending with the resolutions on counterterrorism that were passed by the UN.

So we know what terrorism means. And we urge Russia to pull back its forces, to bull back its artillery, to stop to supply Russian-led terrorists, to restore the control over Ukrainian-Russian border, and to start real talks, peace talks.

We are the country that needs peace. And it’s difficult to hammer out any kind of peace deal at a barrel of a gun, made in Russia

Let me remind you a dramatic disaster that happened due to Russian invasion. Few months ago a civilian flight MH-17 was downed by Russian made missile surface-to-air. 298 innocent civilians were killed. Ukraine mourns the victims. We pray together with the families of Netherlands, Australia, UK, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Germany. Ukraine handed over an investigation to an independent body which is Dutch-led. And we urge everyone to help us to bring to justice those responsible of this despicable crime, crime against humanity.

Every day, despite the ceasefire, we are losing Ukrainian soldiers, we are losing civilians, and the shelling is still going on.

I would reiterate once again – we need peace. What is the formula of this peace? The military option is definitely not the best one. So it is to be a comprehensive approach which comprises diplomatic, financial, political, and only at last – military options.

The US and the EU imposed a number of sanctions against Russia. We do understand that sanctions are the way how to start real talks and how to hammer out a peace deal. No trust in words. We trust only in deeds and actions.

We would once again reiterate our commitment to restore law and order. We urge RF to stick to its international obligation to execute everything that was written in Minsk. And this is not a menu where you can pick the cherry. It means that Russia is to execute all 12 points of this memo.

We ask our partners not to lift sanctions until Ukraine takes over the control of its entire territory – starting with the East of Ukraine, and ending with Crimea. Crimea was, is, and will be a part of Ukraine.

Let me end with a direct message to Russian president, “Mr Putin, you can win a fight against the troops. But you will never win the fight against nation, united Ukrainian nation”.

Help us God.

Thank you.