H.E. Ms Larysa Gerasko:

I thank the Deputies and Senator for their good and interesting questions.

First, with regard to today’s statement by the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation regarding the withdrawal of military troops from the border of Ukraine, we hope that Russia will fulfil its obligations under international law and that it will fulfil its promises. However, we know how Russia acts. We of course want to see this withdrawal in place. If Russia started to de-escalate the situation, we would be happy. As I have mentioned before, we are looking for a peaceful resolution only. Of course, we are ready to defend our country. We are ready to defend our independence, but we do not want to have more casualties. We have already lost 14,000 people. As I mentioned, thousands of people were wounded. It is important that we find a peaceful resolution. We keep all of our diplomatic channels open for peaceful settlement. I would like to underline that there are no NATO troops, US troops or any other country’s troops in Ukraine. Of course, we have to develop and to strengthen the capabilities of our army to defend ourselves. We are grateful to our partners for supplying defensive weapons. However, there are not any foreign military troops on the ground in the territory of Ukraine. We only have such troops on the temporarily occupied territories. Yesterday, our ambassador to the UK clarified this in his interview.

I would like to remind the committee that in 2014, before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Ukraine had a neutral status by law. However, after the invasion, we amended our constitution. Our Euro-Atlantic integration is enshrined in our constitution and it is supported by an overwhelming majority of the population. Some 75% of the population now supports us joining the EU and NATO. We are looking for a defensive alliance, which is NATO, or any other defensive alliances to defend ourselves. Unfortunately, we had, and now are having, a bad experience with our neighbouring country.

With regard to the Minsk agreements, they are the key framework to allow Ukraine to achieve the final goal, which is to resume control over a currently uncontrolled segment of our border with Russia, and to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty over temporarily occupied Donbass. The problem is not about the content of the Minsk agreements but about Moscow’s lack of a political view to implement them. Implementation of the security provisions of the Minsk agreements, the withdrawal of the Russian armed forces, the disarmament of the machinery of the illegal separatist groups and the restoration of border control are essential. How, can the committee imagine, could we organise local elections in an insecure environment? It is impossible. This election, in this case, will not meet any Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, requirements or the requirements of any other international organisations.

I probably did not understand the point about Nazi groups. I do not know what Deputy Brady means, because I never heard about any Nazi groups in Ukraine.

We are a very peaceful and tolerant nation. I am sure that you will not find any reports or documents, for instance in the UN Human Rights Council stating we have Nazi groups or Ukraine violates human rights or anything like that. In the contact lines in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, we only have military troops from the Ukrainian forces. It seems to me that I have answered all of the Deputy's questions.

In response to Senator O'Reilly's questions, to some extent I probably answered them already when I spoke about the Minsk agreement. With regard to the reasonable fear from Russia's side of NATO expansion, Russia demanded security guarantees of non-expansion by NATO in eastern Europe. Who threatens Russia? Russia has the second strongest army in the world. Russia has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world. Russia is one of the most powerful countries in the world. Who threatens it? Ukraine does not. It is one of Russia's narratives that Ukraine or western Europe now threatens Russia and are going to invade it, but of course that is nonsense.

With regard to our relationship with Belarus, we had and I hope we will continue to have a very good and productive relationship with it as one of our neighbouring countries. As members know, the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, Lukashenko, has threatened to block the supply to Ukraine and he has even promised he will join with Russia in the case of further invasion. I hope the people of Belarus will be free and will have transparent elections. I wish the best to Belarus.

According to the Budapest memorandum, to which Russia is one of the parties to the document, it reaffirms its commitments to respect the independence, sovereignty, and existing borders of Ukraine. It also reaffirms the obligation to refrain from threats of use of force against the territorial integrity of political independence of Ukraine and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine, except in self-defence. In 2019, by signing this memorandum we gave up our nuclear arsenal, but we did not receive anything from Russia in return. Russia has breached everything - the Budapest memorandum, the UN charter and the other bilateral agreement on friendship and co-operation. We fulfilled our obligation under these memorandums, but Russia did not.