Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatseniuk during his speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, September 24, called on Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to end his aggression against Ukraine.
“Mr. Putin, you can win the battle with armies, but you will never win the battle with a united Ukrainian nation,” he said during his 10-minute speech, reports Ukrainska Pravda, citing Ukrinform.
Yatseniuk stated that “Russia has violated a number of bilateral and multilateral international agreements,” starting with the UN Charter and ending with the UN resolutions on combating terrorism.
“We know what terrorism is, and we strongly urge Russia to withdraw its troops, its artillery, to stop protecting the Russian-led terrorists, to reestablish control of the Russian-Ukrainian border and to begin real peace talks,” he said.
Yatseniuk acknowledged that the military option for resolving the crisis in Ukraine is not the best. “This approach needs to be comprehensive, to include diplomatic, financial, political and, in extreme cases, the military options,” he said.
He urged the Russians to abide by all twelve points of the Minsk memorandum, noting that “it is not a menu from which you can choose.” He also appealed to the international community to help bring to justice the perpetrators of the tragedy of the downed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane, which he called “a crime against humanity.”
Yatseniuk expressed confidence that Ukraine will regain control over its entire territory, including Crimea.
In turn, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin on Thursday criticized Yatseniuk for his “melodramatic appeal” to Putin, reported ITAR-TASS, September 25.
” It is strange that the Prime Minister of Ukraine instead of taking care of the numerous problems of his country, which is close to economic collapse, has come to New York for the purpose of appearing late in the evening to a half empty hall of the General Assembly,” Churkin told Russian journalists.
“It is also strange that his appearance ended with a melodramatic appeal to the president of Russia,” he added.
“Arseniy Yatseniuk has probably forgotten that Petro Poroshenko is the president of Ukraine, who throughout all this time has been conducting an intensive dialogue with President Putin — a dialogue that was made possible by the recent Minsk negotiations which, we hope, will pave the way for settling the prolonged crisis in Ukraine,” Churkin said.
