Ukraine war: US envoy to UN says Russia intends to dissolve Ukraine from world map
- Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN the US sees growing signs Russia is laying groundwork to annex the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told an Arab summit in Cairo that Moscow’s goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its ‘unacceptable regime’
Lavrov told an Arab summit in Cairo on Sunday that Moscow’s overarching goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its “unacceptable regime.”
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told the Security Council on Friday that “The denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine will be carried out in full.”
“There must no longer be a threat from this stage to Donbas, nor to Russia, nor to the liberated Ukrainian territories where for the first time in several years people are finally able to feel that they can live the way they want,” he said.
Polyansky also warned Western nations supplying long-range artillery and MLRS surface-to-surface rockets that they were shifting “the provisional security line” further toward the west, “and in so doing clarifying even further the aims and objectives of our special military operation.”
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He told the council, “Putting one’s own security above that of others, attempting to strengthen military blocs, establishing absolute superiority … will only lead to conflict and confrontation, divide the international community and make themselves less secure.”
Thomas-Greenfield cited evidence of mounting atrocities including the reported bombings of schools and hospitals, “the killing of aid workers and journalists, the targeting of civilians attempting to flee, the brutal execution-style murder of those going about their daily business in Bucha,” the suburb of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv where local authorities said hundreds of people were killed during its occupation by Russian forces.
She said there is evidence Russia forces “have interrogated, detained forcibly, deported an estimated hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including children – tearing them from their homes and sending them to remote regions in the east.”
Nearly 2 million Ukrainians refugees have been sent to Russia, according to both Ukrainian and Russian officials. Ukraine portrays these journeys as forced transfers to enemy soil, which is considered a war crime. Russia calls them humanitarian evacuations of war victims who already speak Russian and are grateful for a new home.
A recent Associated Press investigation based on dozens of interviews has found that while the situation is more nuanced that the Ukrainians suggest, many refugees are indeed forced to embark on a surreal trip into Russia, subjected along the way to human rights abuses, stripped of documents and left confused and lost about where they are. Those who leave go through a series of what are known as filtration points, where treatment ranges from interrogation and strip-searches to being yanked aside and never seen again.
“The United Nations has information that officials from Russia’s presidential administration are overseeing and coordinating filtration operations,” Thomas-Greenfield told the council.”
Polyansky countered that despite Ukraine’s efforts at intimidation of their citizens “people are choosing the country that they trust” – Russia.
He warned that heavy weapons being poured into Ukraine by the West “will spill over into Europe” because of what he claimed is “the flourishing corruption among Ukraine’s political and military leadership.”
Polyansky said Western weapons are only “dragging out the agony and increasing the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”
Addressing Western ambassadors, he said: “The aims of our special military operation will be achieved either way, however much fuel you pour into the fire in the form of weapons.”