Madam Chairperson,

I wish to start by thanking you and your team for organizing this week for delegations in Vienna informal meetings with Special Representative Heidi Grau and Chief Monitor Halit Cevik.

Yesterday’s discussions shed more light on the current stalemate in the TCG, caused by Russia’s persistent reluctance to engage constructively. Despite numerous calls, including in the Permanent Council, to stop its futile efforts to mislead international community, the Russian side continues delivering false narratives and accusations against other participating States.

The lack of Kremlin’s political will remains the only impediment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. A sequence of steps necessary for making this possible was set by the Minsk agreements and the Normandy Four arrangements. All of them begin with establishment of a comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire, which is a critical prerequisite for further progress.

Regretfully, the Russian armed formations do not stop their attacks.

On 3 and 5 March, two Ukrainian servicemen were seriously wounded by sniper fire near Prychepylivka and Mar`inka. Yesterday, on 10 March, Ukrainian serviceman was killed near Starohnativka. That was a deliberate fire, which cannot be explained by self-defense or preventive measures. In the last PC meeting, we have already informed the delegations that the Russian mercenaries had been allowed starting from 3 March to shoot without any restrictions, in a direct violation of the TCG agreed additional measures to strengthen ceasefire.

Heavy weapons including 120mm mortars continue to be used along the line of contact by the Russian occupant forces, which escalates the security situation even further.

While the Russian side refuses to implement the N4 arrangements on additional disengagement areas and demining, it undermines even the progress, which was reached earlier. On 1 March, as stated in the SMM weekly report of 9 March, an SMM mini-UAV spotted for the first time two anti-personnel mines inside the Petrivske disengagement area, assessed as belonging to the Russian armed formations. More are to come: just outside the area, the same UAV spotted a plastic bag with about 20 anti-personnel mines. Planting the banned anti-personnel mines in the disengagement area, from which all weapons had to be withdrawn long ago, constitutes a very serious violation by the Russian side.

Russian weapon systems continue to be deployed to the occupied parts of Donbas. In the last PC meeting, the Russian delegation refused to answer how “51U6 Kasta-2E1” radar, spotted earlier by the SMM, was delivered to the territory of Ukraine. Such radars were produced from 1989 to 2003 at the facilities of the Murom Radio Measuring Instruments Plant in Russia, and they have been never supplied to Ukraine, neither in 1989, nor after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Let me again ask the Russian delegation to provide explanations on this fact.

We urge the Russian side to recall its orders to fire at will, to stop illegal weapon supplies and to return to the ceasefire and other agreed security measures.

Madam Chairperson,

This week, we celebrated International Women’s Day, which serves as another reminder on women’s role in reaching peace and security. We thank the Swedish Chairpersonship for paying special attention to this topic. In the conflict-affected areas of Ukraine it is often the women who bear the main brunt of the conflict, taking care of children and elderly, maintaining family contacts and sustaining everyday life of their nearest ones. Women and men continue to suffer from Russia’s ongoing aggression. Not only their safety is undermined by the armed hostilities, but they are also denied the possibility to cross the line of contact to receive administrative services, medical assistance and to meet their nearest ones. We are grateful to all participating States paying close attention to the unacceptable situation, in which the Russian side denies opening the checkpoints near Shchastia and Zolote despite the undertaken clear commitments and their technical readiness.

On 1 and 3 March, the UN humanitarian convoy was able to cross the Shchastia EECP in both directions, first to the occupied Luhansk city, then back to the government-controlled areas. We see not a single reason for the Russian side to further delay its opening.

We fully subscribe to the words by Special Representative Heidi Grau that political considerations should not prevail over humanitarian ones in the search for solutions to the issues of operation of the new EECPs near Zolote and Shchastia, mutual release of conflict-related detainees and other issues discussed in the TCG Humanitarian Working Group. According to the most recent data available, 268 Ukrainian citizens are considered to be illegally detained in the Russia-occupied parts of Donbas. We again urge the Russian side to stop using them as hostages.

Last week, we had detailed discussions on implications of illegal occupation of Crimea by Russia, which lasts already for seven years. Politically motivated persecutions of dissenting voices by the Russian occupation authorities was in a spotlight. Today, I wish to bring to your attention one case, which clearly demonstrates that those were not empty words.

On 3 March, Ukrainian citizen Oleh Prykhodko was illegally sentenced by the Russian occupiers to five years in prison on trumped-up charges of “preparing a terrorist act, and manufacturing and illegally storing explosives”. Mr. Prykhodko is a pro-Ukrainian Crimean activist. Back in 2014, after the beginning of occupation of Crimea, he hung the Ukrainian flag out in the yard of his private house in Crimea, to express his disagreement with the occupation. This was followed by pressure from the Russian special services, which tried to make him renounce his views. Failing to achieve that, they have simply planted explosives to his house during the illegal search and accused him of preparation of a terrorist attack. Later, in a violation of the international humanitarian law, he was transferred to the city of Rostov-on-Don in the Russian Federation. Any evidences provided by his defense lawyers were ignored, and he was sentenced, joining the ranks of other political prisoners detained by Kremlin. We call on participating States to severely condemn Russia’s illegal actions, and to increase pressure on Russia to make it abide by the international humanitarian law and human rights law in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

We, again, urge the Russian Federation to reverse its illegal occupation of Crimea, militarization of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and to stop its aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its armed formations, mercenaries and their hardware from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and fully implementing its commitments under the Minsk agreements.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.