Tag: Press Release

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Ambassador Yrjölä, for your timely and sobering report. It makes clear how critical the OSCE’s conflict cycle tools are to our ability to deal with complex and substantial security challenges.

Unfortunately, Russia has consistently stymied this work. Russia blocked the mandate renewals of the Border Observer Mission, the Special Monitoring Mission, and the Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine. We call on Russia for the immediate release of our OSCE Special Monitoring Mission colleagues currently detained in Donetsk and Luhansk. Their detention is unjust and unacceptable.

Russia continues to show no interest in peace, and has caused untold harm to Ukrainian citizens. Russia’s actions make it hard for the OSCE to carry out the work it was designed to do. The irony is that it also makes that work more necessary than ever. To that end, we are grateful for the CPC’s role in coordinating the Support Programme for Ukraine. It is vital that civilians and civilian institutions in Ukraine are protected and supported.

Russia also continues to undermine Georgia’s sovereignty. It has violated its territorial integrity by recognising the so-called independence of Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions, and by its attempted borderisation tactics. In Moldova, Russian forces and potentially hazardous munitions remain present illegitimately in Transnistria. We continue to support efforts to ensure peaceful, sustainable resolutions to these conflicts, including through the valuable work of the Geneva International Discussions and the Mission to Moldova.

We are also closely following the ongoing peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we welcome the participation of both countries in working towards a settlement of all outstanding matters between them. We urge them to continue with this momentum.

The CPC is able to play a crucial role in addressing all of these challenges through international reporting, early warning, dialogue facilitation, mediation, rehabilitation, and programme management. We support the plan to strengthen these tools further, including through greater use of technology. But as the report states, these tools can only be as effective as we, the participating States, allow them to be. We must demonstrate the political will to use these resources and fully implement the principles and commitments that underpin comprehensive security.

It is essential that across the CPC’s work, there is an emphasis on the participation of women and civil society. We welcome the CPC’s work to strengthen the capacities of women negotiators in the Working Groups of the Transnistrian Settlement Process, as well as other valuable initiatives such as the CPC’s Scholarship for Peace and Security training programme. As we have seen time and again, the full, equal and meaningful participation of women leads to better, more sustainable outcomes for all.

Mr Chair, as set out so clearly in Ambassador Yrjölä’s report, the chronic lack of financial sustainability is having a hugely negative impact on the work of the CPC and other OSCE structures. The continued non-agreement of the 2023 OSCE Unified Budget remains an enormous hindrance to the effective running of the organisation, its institutions and its field missions. We urge those participating States who continue to obstruct agreement to look beyond a narrow, national focus. We must ensure that all OSCE institutions and structures have the funding they need in order to effectively fulfil their mandate.

Ambassador Yrjölä, I would like to thank you, your team, and the field missions for your ongoing support to participating States facing conflict situations. Over the next year, we will face continued challenges, and we must all renew our commitment to preventing conflict and sustaining peace.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Let me start by condemning Russia’s continued large-scale missile and drone attacks against Ukraine. This includes strikes on Kyiv overnight, where a child has reportedly been killed and others injured. Over the past month, civilians have endured almost daily attacks, including 20 night-time air strikes. 1,120 air raid sirens have been recorded across the country in May alone. Thankfully, Ukrainian Air Defence continues to intercept most of Russia’s attacks. However, this does not alter the reality for Ukrainian families, who are forced to take nightly shelter in bunkers, and go to bed not knowing whether they will even wake up the next day.

Today is the International Day of the Protection of Children. So I will focus my statement on the Ukrainian children who continue to suffer from Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion.

Since last February, Russia has unleashed a ruthless bombardment of missile attacks which have damaged and destroyed schools, hospitals and residential buildings. The United Nations Children’s Fund reports that Russia’s unrelenting brutality has claimed the lives of over 500 children. Just last week, Russia’s attack on a clinic in Dnipro killed four people and injured 32. This included two children under seven years old.

The children living in temporarily Russian controlled territories also continue to suffer under repressive regimes. I want to highlight the cases of two teenagers, Tihran Ohannisian and Mykyta Khanhanov, in particular. Last week in Berdiansk, they were charged by the Russian Federation with allegedly planning to ‘sabotage’ the Melitopol Railway. Aged just 16 and 17 years old, these boys have faced about eight months of persecution. On 30 September 2022, Russian authorities forcefully took Tihran from his home. For five days, Tihran was interrogated brutally. He was beaten and tortured with electric shocks. All to induce a confession.  For five days, his family did now know where he was.

Mykyta was subjected to similar mistreatment. Their lawyers, who the Russian authorities appointed to represent the boys, did not provide legal support to the boys. Last Wednesday, Tihran and Mykyta were ‘charged’ under Article 281 of the Russian Criminal Code. Both face between 10 to 20 years in prison. The UK calls on Russia to cease its persecution of Ukrainian children, including Tihran and Mykyta.

Mr Chair, we also continue to receive disturbing reports of the forced deportation of Ukrainian children by the Russian authorities. As the most recent Moscow Mechanism Report makes clear, these children are exposed to the deep trauma of being separated from their parents. They suffer violations and abuses of their rights, including being forced to relinquish their Ukrainian identity and participate in Russia-centric education. Russia’s forced deportation and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children is a despicable and systematic attempt to erase Ukraine’s future.

Each day that Russia chooses to press on with its illegal and unprovoked invasion, Ukrainian children suffer. Children who have their whole lives ahead of them. Children whose futures the Russian authorities seem determined to take away. The UK will continue to support Ukraine to ensure those responsible will face justice.

Thank you, Mr Chair.