Mr. Chairperson, 

We congratulate Ambassador of Ireland to the OSCE Anne-Marie Callan and Ambassador of Romania to the OSCE Stelian Stoian on assuming the chairpersonships of the Human Dimension and Security committees respectively. 

We also congratulate Ambassador of Austria to the OSCE Florian Raunig with his reappointment as Chairperson of the Economic and Environmental Committee.

Dear ambassadors, a difficult task rests on your shoulders in steering the work of the three committees in face of the ongoing russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the unprecedented damages and threats it brought to the OSCE region in all three dimensions of security.

We believe that our Organization can be still effective despite all russia’s intentions to undermine its work. We believe that the resilience, which we have already demonstrated, will help the OSCE to withstand these challenging times and further develop.

You can count on Ukraine’s support and active involvement in the committees’ work throughout this another difficult year.

Distinguished colleagues, 

The OSCE Chairpersonship of the North Macedonia rightly emphasized in its programme for 2023 that people are unfortunately the first to feel the pains of war and aggression. Consequently, they identified that ensuring human security and bettering people’s lives must be the OSCE’s overall mission and endgame.

We fully share this approach. Therefore, let me start today with the Human Dimension. Because ensuring the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law are at the heart of our joint efforts aimed at saving people’s lives, ensuring their security and wellbeing.

 

Dear Ambassador Callan,

We welcome the firm intention, voiced by the Ireland’s Chairpersonship of the Third Committee, to address at the committee meetings the most pressing human rights and international humanitarian law issues stemming from the russian war against Ukraine.

There are a lot of them. The terror against the civilian population, summary executions, mass atrocities, cases of torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, abductions, enforced disappearances, political prisoners, filtration camps, forcible deportation of Ukrainian citizens, including many children, to russia, violent russification of invaded territories and attempts to erase Ukrainian culture and identity.

This list can be continued. Therefore, our ultimate aim must be to immediately stop all these genocidal attempts of the aggressor State against Ukrainians and ensure that russia and its war criminals are held accountable.

We underline the need to further prioritize the monitoring and documentation of russia’s gross violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, including in Crimea and other temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

We call on the Chairpersonship of the North Macedonia, as a guardian of the OSCE principles and commitments, to ensure that the above-mentioned gross violations are duly addressed by this Organization at all OSCE human dimension events in 2023.

Dear Ambassador Stoian, 

We would welcome close attention of the Security Committee to the protection of critical infrastructure, demining, post conflict rehabilitation and other processes, which are so important, especially in the territories that were liberated from the russian invaders.

It is also important to focus on the issues of cyber security, in particular the protection of critical infrastructure in the cyber sphere, as well as border security as one of the cornerstones of territorial integrity.

The threats posed by the criminal actions of the aggressor state in the occupied territories deserve priority attention of the First Committee. We must address the consequences of the russian military occupation of the territory of Ukraine and other states in violation of the fundamental Helsinki Final Act principles guiding relations between participating States.

We encourage your Committee to keep high on its agenda such cross-dimensional issues as trafficking in human beings, especially children abduction, as well as sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflict.

 

Dear Ambassador Raunig,

In the Second Committee, we should continue our work on strengthening the economic and environmental elements of the OSCE comprehensive approach to security. In face of russia’s ongoing war we need to concentrate our efforts on the most pressing issues such as energy and food security, as well as violations of international humanitarian law related to the environment.

Here, just one recent example to share. The State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine shared the statistics that in Mykolaiv region the area of forest fires increased by 400 times in 2022 in comparison to 2021. As a result of the constant shelling by the russian armed forces, we have already lost 2150 hectares of forests and it will take at least 50 years to renew such forests.

We find it very disturbing that russian representatives continue their attempts to substitute notions with their narratives regarding so-called “unifying” agenda, which does not correlate with their war against Ukraine and is simply not relevant as of today. In this context, we should not succumb to such distortions and should remain unanimous that the most unifying agenda in the OSCE now is how to stop russian war of aggression, violation of the OSCE principles and destructive actions in all three baskets.

Let me stress, that the Second Dimension is one of the most proper places to address such issues stemming from the war in order to mitigate the related consequences. We do not need to invent something artificial in attempt to have dialogue with those who justify the war and still pretend that the OSCE hasn’t changed due to this war.

 

Dear colleagues, 

russia’s war of choice provokes turbulence, instability, and enormous security challenges in all three OSCE dimensions. Consequently, the protection of the OSCE basics must remain at the heart of the committees’ efforts in 2023.

We encourage the Permanent Council’s committees to further pursue their important activities aimed at strengthening the implementation of the OSCE commitments in all three dimensions of security.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.