Madam Chairperson,  

This is not the first time that the Russian delegation puts on the agenda the issue of the Munich pact, calling it a current issue. We concur with the view of other delegations that history is beyond the scope of PC’s current issues and should be left to historians.

However, as the Russian statement mentioned Ukraine, we would like to make some comments on the issue.

First of all, in our view today’s Russian statement has nothing in common with the genuine will to fight neo-Nazism, aggressive nationalism and other forms of intolerance. Rather we are witnessing how Russia manipulates with the history, endeavors to monopolize the victory over Nazism and twist the essence of the Nuremberg Tribunal in pursuance of one’s aggressive political interests.

We hardly expect the State which transformed territorial expansionism, which is prohibited by the OSCE commitments, into a state policy, to engage into efforts to combat aggressive nationalism and related intolerance.    

We hope that the Russian delegation may eventually be as eager to discuss the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, whereby two totalitarian regimes – Nazi and Soviet – agreed to divide Europe and began as allies what later became the bloodiest war in the human history – the Second World War.

In that war the Ukrainian nation lost over 8 million lives. The Nazism was defeated, but this victory did not bring freedom to many nations in Europe as the Soviet totalitarian regime maintained its repressive grip for another 45 years.

In this regard, we reaffirm our strongest condemnation of all forms of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance. My country strongly condemns the crimes committed by the neonazist and communist totalitarian regimes. Ukraine adopted the legislation making it a criminal offence to propagate their ideologies and manifestations.

On the 29^th and 30^th of September, 80 years ago, almost 34,000 Ukrainian Jews were executed by Nazis in a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv, known as Babyn Yar. In Soviet times, the tragedy of Babyn Yar was silenced in an attempt to erase it from society’s collective memory. The independent Ukrainian state in cooperation with the world Jewish community and international partners commemorates the Babyn Yar tragedy at the state level.

It is important to honor all victims of totalitarian regimes, in particular the memory of those who perished from the Holocaust, as well as from artificially created genocide, one of the most horrific man-made tragedies in modern history – Holodomor (Famine) of 1932-33 in Ukraine. Holodomor was organized by the Soviet totalitarian regime, on the orders of dictator Stalin, whose memory is now glorified in Russia.

Russia’s attempt to present itself as a champion of combating Nazism and neo-Nazism while widely glorifying Stalinism, which committed the same crimes against entire nations, looks cynical and hypocrite.  

Against this backdrop we continue to witness unprecedented rise of radicalism, hatred, enmity, aggressive nationalism, neo-Nazism and xenophobic manifestations in the Russian Federation, especially fueled by state-owned media outlets, as well as extended support to numerous authoritarian regimes. Moreover, series of scandals reveal that Moscow tried to establish connections with modern far-right political forces across the continent and beyond, believing that having such allies would help the Kremlin to extend its geopolitical influence.

Madam Chairperson,

What we cannot change is the unprecedented human losses and horrors of the Second World War, but what we can and must do is to remember and base our actions on lessons drawn from that devastating tragedy.

The lesson of Munich pact is that appeasement of an aggressor incites further aggression. Projecting this lesson to present reality, we draw attention that in 2014 the Russian Federation sent its troops and agents to illegally occupy parts of Ukraine – the Crimean peninsula and Donbas region, attempted to change state borders by force and since then continues to maintain hostilities in Donbas by its regular troops, mercenaries, proxy forces and military equipment.

In this light it is critically important to firmly hold the aggressor to account and employ all necessary instruments to make it return to the tenets of international law and the core principles of the European security order.

 Thank you, Madam Chairperson.