Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 16 to 19, inclusive, together.

I attended the summit on peace in Ukraine hosted by Switzerland on 15 and 16 June, together with over 50 other world leaders and over 100 countries and international organisations. As world leaders gathered for this important summit to talk about peace, Russia continued its relentless attacks on Ukraine, including the targeting of civilian infrastructure. The summit agreed a joint communiqué which was signed by most countries participating. This important document, crucially, makes clear that any just and lasting peace must be based on the principles of the UN Charter, respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence.

The summit also agreed a practical and tangible path for follow-up on areas where there is broad agreement, including food security, nuclear safety and the return of prisoners, children and civilians. At the summit, I also participated in a round-table discussion on humanitarian issues, especially the appalling and unacceptable removal, abduction really, by Russia of thousands of Ukrainian children from their homes and families. Some have been taken to Russia and some to temporarily occupied territories, where they are assigned Russian citizenship and sometimes adopted into Russian families and where efforts are made to undermine and overwrite their Ukrainian culture.

This is a war crime, and I am not sure the world is talking about it enough or perhaps is even aware of it enough. I refer to the scale of the number of children who have been kidnapped, abducted and robbed from their parents. Some young babies have been taken from their homes. They have been snatched away. The terror and horror of this do not bear thinking about. We need to acknowledge it and call it out. While we work for peace in Ukraine, we need to look at what can be done in the here and now, including how governments like ours can better support organisations like UNICEF and the Red Cross that are doing work in this area, how the churches may have a role to play and how some countries that continue to have dialogue with Russia can potentially play a role as well. I acknowledge that countries like Qatar have played a role in returning some children to their families. I believe that if a child were to be returned every day to Ukraine, it would take around 55 years for all these children to be returned.

While there was a very large turnout at the summit, and participants were present from all parts of the world, it is truthful to say there were notable absences from parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East in particular, and not all attending opted to join the communiqué. It is therefore clear that we need to continue to reach out to the global south, in particular, to increase understanding of what is at stake. If Russia’s invasion is allowed to stand, none of us can rely on the basic commitment to territorial integrity and sovereignty promised in the UN Charter.

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