Madam Chairperson,  

The Ukrainian Delegation aligns itself with the statement delivered by the European Union and would like to make short remarks in our national capacity.

We are grateful to the French delegation for raising such an important issue.

Russia remains the greatest, both overt and covert threat, to our common security. Ukraine has its own experience of confronting both.

From 2014 to 2022, Ukraine has witnessed an unprecedented escalation of russian malign activities. As it later turned out, it was a precursor to russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. Just a few examples.

In May, 2014, Ukraine’s election system was attacked. In 2015, the power grid system was targeted for the first time. In 2017, the financial system, government networks, energy companies, and even the radiation monitoring system at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant were severely damaged. Furthermore, more than 13,000 various attacks against Ukraine were recorded during the war.

The sectors targeted in these attacks include government institutions, the IT financial and commercial sectors, communication systems. At the same time, russia’s malign activities are not limited only to the cyber-attacks.

Russia is also building up its malign networks to support its subversive activities, to spread false narrative, to strengthen general distrust. In view of this, russia’s presence in different countries should be carefully explored and limited to the possible minimum.  

Russia also actively uses traditional media, such as television and newspapers, as well as bots and trolls on different Internet platforms. This should be taken into account in view of the preparation for elections in various countries. Attempts by Russia to abuse various freedoms – be it in the sphere of media, culture or religion – to disguise its malign activities should be neutralised immediately.   

This matters to national security of our countries. According to Ukraine’s experience, russia’s malign activities have three main goals – to disrupt the state and international institutions as a functioning entity, to cause enormous economic damage and to undermine social cohesion.

The resilience of societies depends on our concrete actions. And the OSCE has to serve as one of such actions, including for exposing russia’s malign activities.   

I thank you, Madam Chairperson.