S/2021/53 Security Council
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United Nations S/2021/53 Security Council Distr.: General 15 January 2021 Original: English Letter dated 14 January 2021 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council I have the honour to transmit herewith the Chair’s summary of the Arria-formula meeting of Security Council members held on 2 December 2020 on the topic “Implementation of the 2015 Minsk Package of Measures on the settlement in Ukraine: a year since the Paris ‘Normandie’ summit” (see annex I), as well as the joint letter of gratitude for participation in the event from the representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Trilateral Contact Group, Natalia Nikonorova and Vladyslav Deinego (see annex II). I would appreciate your kind assistance in having the present letter and its annexes issued as a document of the Security Council. (Signed) Vassily Nebenzia 21-00531 (E) 250121 *2100531* S/2021/53 Annex I to the letter dated 14 January 2021 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council Summary of the Arria formula meeting held on 2 December 2020 on the topic “Implementation of the 2015 Minsk Package of Measures on the settlement in Ukraine: a year since the Paris ‘Normandie’ summit” Introduction On 2 December 2020, the Russian Federation hosted an Arria-formula meeting in order to provide an opportunity to exchange views and analysis on the challenges of implementing Security Council resolution 2202 (2015) and presidential statement S/PRST/2018/12. In those two documents, the Council endorsed the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, which remains the only internationally approved basis for the settlement in Ukraine, and encouraged all parties to implement all the steps agreed in the Trilateral Contact Group1 in order to make immediate progress in the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. The purpose of the Arria-formula meeting was to provide a platform for those directly involved in the Minsk peace process to present first-hand information to all the interested participants. Representatives of all the States Members of the United Nations were invited to attend and to make statements. A special invitation letter was sent on 19 November 2020 to the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations (with copies sent to the Permanent Representatives of France and Germany), inviting Ukraine to nominate a person to present the position of Kiev. Similarly, the representative of Donetsk in the Trilateral Contact Group, Natalia Nikonorova, and the representative of Lugansk in the Trilateral Contact Group, Vladyslav Deinego, were specially invited. Unfortunately, despite the above-mentioned direct written invitation, Ukraine failed to nominate anyone to share Kiev’s official position on the work of the Trilateral Contact Group. Therefore the Director of the Kiev Centre of Political Studies and Conflictology, Mikhail Pogrebinsky, was invited to share his professional views on the matter. A concept note providing background information was released prior to the discussion. The Arria-formula meeting to discuss the challenges to the settlement was held via virtual teleconference and was live-streamed.2 It was chaired by the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, and attended by the representatives of 17 other delegations to the United Nations, including 9 Security Council members. Statements by the panellists Speaking first, Ms. Nikonorova 3 expressed her gratitude for the first-ever opportunity for the representatives from Donbass to present, in an event on the __________________ 1 A platform for direct trilateral dialogue between representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk, with mediation assistance provided by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Russian Federation. 2 Recording available at https://youtu.be/otTV8ohQanA. 3 The full text of her statement is available in English at https://www.mid-dnr.su/en/pages/docs/ doklad-natali-nikonorovoj-na-zasedanii-sb-oon-po-formule-arrii/. 2/9 21-00531 S/2021/53 margins of the United Nations, a realistic picture of the situation on the ground, as well as of the progress made in the Minsk negotiation process, or the lack thereof. She touched upon the genesis of the conflict, stating that the residents of Donbass were not only outraged by the lawlessness of an illegal coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014, but were also fully aware of the massacres that had taken place afterwards under the new Ukrainian regime. She referred to the events in Odessa on 2 May 2014, in which 48 people had been killed and at least 250 had been injured; in Mariupol on 9 May 2014, in which more than 20 people had died and about 50 had been injured; and the storming of Slaviansk by the Ukrainian National Guard in the period of 3–5 May 2014, which had resulted in the deaths of more than 30 civilians. She explained that, under such life-threatening circumstances, the people of Donetsk had no choice but to organize themselves around local self-government to protect the rights and freedoms of the local population against Ukrainian authorities. On the other hand, Kiev, instead of dialogue, had announced the launch of an “anti-terrorist operation” and sent armed forces to Donbass. Since that time, for seven consecutive years, the people of the region had been living in conditions of civil war – at least 13,000 people had died, including 149 children, and about 30,000 had been injured. Ms. Nikonorova dedicated most of her statement to the facts of Kiev’s manipulation, whereby it created a deceptive impression that it implemented the provisions of the Package of Measures and the Common Agreed Conclusions of the Paris “Normandie” summit, while it was in reality sabotaging the implementation process. First, speaking about one of the most important achievements of 2020, the additional measures for a full and comprehensive ceasefire, she reminded participants that Kiev had refused to implement the earlier agreed parameters for a whole year, from July 2019 to July 2020. Moreover, despite there having been no casualties for almost two months, at the end of the day, the ceasefire had effectively been undermined by Kiev, as it refused to implement the main measure: a joint verification mechanism. As a result, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine in November had recorded yet more violations: 157, including 33 cases of the use of heavy weapons. Second, Ms. Nikonorova referred to Kiev’s continued attempts to escape its obligations under the political provisions of the Package of Measures, in particular those contained in paragraph 11 on the adoption of permanent legislation in Ukraine on the special status of Donetsk and Lugansk in agreement with the representatives of those areas. She reminded participants that that pivotal task was reconfirmed in section 2 of the Common Agreed Conclusions, which stressed the necessity of incorporating the “Steinmeier formula”4 into the Ukrainian legislation on a permanent basis. She clarified that, although the Steinmeier formula had been introduced in 2015 and agreed upon in the Trilateral Contact Group a year later, consideration of the issue had been blocked by the Ukrainian side up until October 2019. It had finally been accepted by Kiev solely to open doors for the next Normandy format meeting. However, a year since the Paris summit, the Steinmeier formula had not yet been integrated into Ukrainian legislation. __________________ 4 The formula proposed in October 2015 by the German Minister for Foreign Affairs at that time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in response to the failure of Ukraine to fulfil its obligations under the Package of Measures. It suggests a very specific sequence of steps for the entry into force of provisions in Ukrainian legislation, synchronized with the holding of local elections in Donbass. 21-00531 3/9 S/2021/53 She also reminded participants that, in accordance with the Package of Measures, any amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine that concerned Donbass were to be agreed upon in the Trilateral Contact Group with the direct participation of Donetsk and Lugansk. Until that was accomplished, the rest of the work might simply be a waste. Third, Ms. Nikonorova referred to multiple Ukrainian post-coup laws that directly contradicted the Package of Measures and the very logic of settlement. For instance, the bill on local elections, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada5 on 15 June 2020, and the bill on decentralization of 17 November 2020 were attempts to reverse the parameters of paragraphs 9 and 11 of the Packages of Measures. 6 She highlighted the draft law on the internment (forced displacement) of Russian citizens, submitted in November 2020 by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine for the consideration of the Verkhovna Rada, which reminded her of some of the darkest pages in European history, the establishment of concentration camps, this time on Ukrainian territory for Russian passport holders. Answering a question on whether she had a Russian passport, Ms. Nikonorova explained that Kiev had left her and thousands of Donbass residents with no other option, as it had cut down on all State services in the region. As a result, she was not even able to use her expired Ukrainian passport to cross borders to reach Minsk, where she represented Donetsk in the Trilateral Contact Group. Thus, she had no other choice but to benefit from the decree of 24 April 2019 by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, on simplified procedures for obtaining Russian citizenship. In total, in the years since signing the Package of Measures, Ukraine had adopted around 60 legal acts that contradicted not only the Minsk Agreements, but also fundamental acts of international law.