Madam Chairperson,

The Delegation of Ukraine warmly welcomes the newly elected President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Margareta Cederfelt to the Permanent Council. We congratulate Margareta Cederfelt on recent election to this responsible position and wish her every success in her endeavours.

We appreciate today’s opportunity to exchange views on enhancing co-operation between the inter-governmental and inter-parliamentary parts of the OSCE which both aim at promoting peace, security, common values and co-operation, underpinned by respect for the OSCE principles and commitments, starting from the Helsinki Final Act.

The Assembly’s annual session, which took place remotely in July 2021, reaffirmed that the OSCE PA continues to be entirely operational platform, ensuring necessary reaction to the current security threats in the OSCE region, despite difficulties posed by the pandemic.

We welcome the adoption of the Assembly’s Urgent Resolution on “The Destabilizing Military Build-Up by the Russian Federation Near Ukraine, in the Temporarily Occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, Ukraine, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov”.

In the document, the OSCE PA strongly urged the Russian Federation to reverse the illegal occupation of Crimea, and to immediately withdraw its troops, weapons, military equipment and warships from the occupied peninsula, including those additionally redeployed to Crimea and its territorial waters following the large-scale military exercises held by the Russian Federation in April 2021. Furthermore, it called on the Russian Federation to lift all restrictions to the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and through the Kerch Strait in accordance with applicable international law.

We view this document as an important contribution of the Assembly to the international efforts aimed at overcoming the worst crisis in European security since the World War II, as well as insisting on the implementation of all previous OSCE PA resolutions, adopted in 2014-2019 on Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine and violation of fundamental OSCE principles.

Madam President, 

The Crimea Platform Summit was held in Kyiv on 23 August 2021, and united 46 delegations, representing national states and international organizations. It concluded with a Declaration reiterating the international community’s unwavering commitment to work together to return Crimea to Ukraine. 

We invite the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly to join the Crimea Platform and the Declaration and contribute to the implementation of its goals.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine looks forward to working with the OSCE PA and other interparliamentary fora within the Crimea Platform Inter-Parliamentary Coordination Council, as underlined in the relevant Appeal, addressed to the United Nations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, PABSEC, the European Parliament, foreign governments and parliaments, adopted by the Resolution of the Parliament of Ukraine on 23 August 2021.

President Cederfelt,

We welcome the decisions by the OSCE PA and ODIHR not to send observers for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Russia due to limitations imposed by the Russian authorities on the election observation. 

We take this opportunity to reiterate the need for the OSCE PA and ODIHR to issue strong statements condemning the organization by Russia and its occupation administration of illegal elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. We stress that the conduct of such elections is unlawful as they violate the legislation of Ukraine and norms of international law, and their results will be null and void.

We condemn the intention of the aggressor state to get involved in the election process the citizens of Ukraine, living in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine with illegally issued Russian passports, as well as almost 1,5 million voters who now live in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.

We must bear in mind, that such approach of Russian authorities towards the organization of national elections will significantly influence and distort the general results of the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation, thus questioning their validity from the very beginning.

In this light, we also call on the OSCE participating States to refrain from sending observers for the forthcoming Russian parliamentary elections on 17-19 September 2021, as their presence would be undoubtfully used by Russia to legitimize the illegal electoral practices.  

In conclusion, I wish to thank you, President Cederfelt, for addressing the Permanent Council and express full support for the activities of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and its efforts towards peace and security in Europe.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.