Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Three years ago this week, Vladimir Putin unleashed a brutal and criminal invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people deserve great praise for their defence of their country and its sovereignty but the price they paid has been costly. Some 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the invasion of February 2022. The number of children abducted runs certainly to the tens of thousands at a minimum. The reality of the destruction of human life, of the maimed and the wounded across civilian and military personnel arising from Putin's war may well result in closer to 1 million. An end to the bloodshed is required. The war must end and we need the full withdrawal of Russian forces from sovereign Ukrainian territory. We need the return of every abducted child. For there to be any chance that a peace is sustaining and lasting, a starting point must be that the Ukrainian people themselves are party to negotiations. As a neutral country with an independent foreign policy, Ireland should utilise every diplomatic lever at our disposal to insist upon exactly that. The Ukrainian people can no more be expected to have another's concept of peace foisted upon them than they can be expected to endure occupation. Ireland should be a champion of peace, conflict resolution, multilateralism, the UN Charter and international law.

The European Union, which should have been a strong advocate and negotiator for peace, has instead been drawn into militarism. We should not forget that in the past when war fever and arms races swept Europe, it has only ever led to more war. At a time when we see so many world leaders, especially in Europe and the United States, undermining the international institutions built up over the past 80 years, Ireland must be a consistent voice in advocating. If Russia is to be sanctioned for its crimes, then so too should Israel. If Vladimir Putin cannot set foot within the European Union for fear of arrest and trial before the International Criminal Court, nor should Benjamin Netanyahu be able to. If we reject Russia's irredentist aspirations, then we must also reject Israel's. The future of Ukraine belongs to the Ukrainian people, and the future of Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people, yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever. When we fail to acknowledge these facts consistently or call out others who fail to do so, we diminish the international institutions left to us by a generation that did not want to see the horrors of the past repeated. When we exclude a sovereign people from discussions on their own future, we diminish our own history and the aspirations and legacies of those generations. We diminish our credibility in contributing constructively to peace, humanitarianism and conflict resolution across the world. These are not legacies that we should wantonly cast aside. Ireland must always be a champion for international law, international humanitarian law and the UN Charter.

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