Kyiv Convenes Meeting of UN General Assembly on Situation in Occupied Territories

Ukraine initiated a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on the situation in the territories occupied by the Russian Federation on 23 February.

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya said in an interview with LB.ua that one of the agenda items will be the discussion of the report on Donbas. In particular, during the meeting, the Ukrainian side plans to raise the issue of an illegally organised forum called “Russian Donbas.”

In addition, according to the diplomat, the UN will host an event on Russian aggression with the participation of the leadership of the Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories.

“On 23 February, the Permanent Mission of Ukraine will organise a briefing chaired by the leadership of the Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories for member states of the entire UN, not only of the Security Council, regarding the situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. And there we will be able to tell everything about the course of events at the front without any time limits,” Kyslytsya said.

He also did not rule out that an international UN peacekeeping administration may appear in the temporarily occupied Donbas. However, the diplomat noted that this will happen only after a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia is concluded and the final decision on the deployment of peacekeepers is made by the Verkhovna Rada.

“The sequence is as follows: the parties to the conflict reach a peace agreement. It is approved by the United Nations, after which a mission, in cooperation with the parties to the conflict and, most importantly, in cooperation with the sovereign country, is sent to determine which format is the most appropriate for this peace agreement. The head of the mission reports to the Security Council. Then, a mandate is developed together with Ukraine, and the agreement is submitted to the Verkhovna Rada at the initiative of the government and the president,” the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations stressed.

He reminded that Ukraine’s appeal to the UN regarding the deployment of a peacekeeping mission in Donbas remains valid and has not been canceled.

Bohdan Marusyak