Thank you, Mr Chair.<\/p>\n
At the final meeting of the Permanent Council before recess, I expressed a hope that our next meeting would not take place against the backdrop of Russia\u2019s war of aggression in Ukraine.\u00a0 Regrettably, not only is Russia\u2019s war continuing unabated today, but we meet in this extraordinary format following a particularly reckless attack.<\/p>\n
On the night of 8 January, Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Ukraine.\u00a0 Once again, this attack killed and injured innocent civilians, it resulted in damage to a diplomatic premises, this time belonging to Qatar, and the attack on energy infrastructure left hundreds of thousands without power and heating in the depths of winter.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s systematic and cynical tactic of seeking to deprive Ukrainians of warmth and basic necessities at a time of year when temperatures are plummeting to minus 20 and below is deserving of international condemnation.\u00a0 It is barbaric. And we must never allow any participating state to normalise the weaponisation of winter in this way.<\/p>\n
But what was different last Thursday night was the use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which Russia calls Oreshnik.\u00a0 Russia first deployed this missile against Dnipro in November 2024.\u00a0 This time it struck a site in the region of Lviv, just 50 miles from NATO\u2019s border.<\/p>\n
We condemn these irresponsible attacks.\u00a0 It is yet another attempt by President Putin to terrorise the people of Ukraine and to undermine our shared security.\u00a0 Russia has attempted to justify this escalatory action by claiming it was in response to an attack on one of President Putin\u2019s residences. The problem is: there was no such attack. \u00a0\u00a0This claim was yet another example of Russia seeking to create and manipulate narratives to avoid engaging meaningfully with peace initiatives.\u00a0 Russia not only started this war. It is also doing everything in its power to disrupt efforts to end it.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the US, Ukraine and its partners have continued to work hard to secure a just and lasting peace.\u00a0 These efforts have reached their most promising stage, which is what Russia fears.\u00a0 Even Russian doublespeak struggles to bridge the chasm between President Putin\u2019s professed desire for peace and his actions.<\/p>\n
President Putin believes he can break the will of the Ukrainian people.\u00a0 He is wrong.\u00a0 The resilience and determination Ukrainians have shown over the nearly four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, remain undimmed.<\/p>\n
If Russia\u2019s escalatory actions are also designed to deter partners from supporting Ukraine \u2013 then they shall also fail.\u00a0 Alongside our partners, we will continue to ensure that Ukraine gets the military and financial support it needs to defend itself, whilst we also ramp up the pressure on Russia to engage in meaningful negotiations.\u00a0 UK support for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine remains iron-clad.<\/p>\n
Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thank you, Mr Chair. At the final meeting of the Permanent Council before recess, I expressed a hope…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-697955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115899933045969298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}