Serhii Pohoreltsev
Ambassador of Ukraine to Spain
Last weekend the international community woke up terrified to witness what amounts to a Russian-style war in Europe.
Having recaptured the small towns of Bucha and Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukrainian troops found a desolate area that showed the true face of the Russian “liberators” who hastily left what was previously a recreation district. The Russian invaders once again resorted to the chilling scorched earth tactic, comparable only to other ethnic cleansing operations.
Summary executions in basements of handcuffed people, including children and grandparents, mass rapes, including girls under the age of 10, naked bodies dumped on sidewalks, mass graves, the houses stripped bare, the dogs shot dead in the streets and in cages in animal shelters …
It is a heartbreaking picture of the human condition left behind by the “emissaries of the great Russian culture”.
Will we continue to talk about Russian ballet, the greatness of Russian poetry and prose, Russian music, cinema and theater as if massacres like the one in Bucha did not happen? Are we once again going to ignore them?
It is not only Putin who is guilty. Those who pulled the trigger and executed hundreds in Bucha must be prosecuted and held accountable. Along with those who looted houses in Irpin, raped women and minors in the towns of Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel, Brovary. Those who killed, cooked and… ate the Central Asian shepherd dog in the village of Yasnogorodka. Isn’t it a testimony of the collective moral decay in Russia?
Are the Russian servicemen who committed these atrocities in Ukraine “sentient beings”? What do the mothers of these Russian servicemen feel (if they feel anything)?
The recent talks in Istanbul showed that there is still a long way to go before results can be reached on all the key issues, a permanent ceasefire and the disengagement of the territory of my country.
The consultations must stay the course. Ukraine will continue to raise the issues that will make it possible to impose a ceasefire and will demand the withdrawal of Russian troops to the February 23 line. We are ready to talk, in principle, about security guarantees to Ukraine from the leading countries that can do it. In the short term, without further postponement, it is necessary to unblock the issues of opening and necessary guarantees for safe operation of humanitarian corridors on a permanent basis, evacuation of the wounded and exchange of mortal remains, release of prisoners of war and civilians forcibly interned to the territory of Russia.
However, during these consultations our delegation made it clear to the representatives of the Kremlin that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine are non-negotiable. Russia will have to pay compensation for everything ruined in Ukraine, as well as fully return the temporarily occupied territories.
Russia is carrying out genocide in Ukraine. They came exactly with a very clear plan and goal: to cleanse the territory of the “disloyal” population, those who resist the idea of resurrecting a Russian empire.
I hope that the civilized world will finally realize that the monster of the Russian Federation became an existential threat and has no right to remain a part of it.
In Ukraine the Russian barbarian can be stopped and forced to return to its primitive cave. Otherwise, other countries of Europe will be next.
Seeing the horrors of Bucha, EU Europe, together with the United States and other democracies, have to show all their determination to defend the values and principles they declare.
Europe has a whole arsenal of tools that will make Russia pay a heavy price for its aggression and atrocities committed in Ukraine.
It is a moral obligation, not an option, to impose devastating sanctions on the Russian economy, as well as to investigate war crimes and punish those responsible.
Trade cooperation with Russia is immoral. Behind this cooperation hide the faces of foreign businessmen who invested in Russia’s economy and now hope that the war will end soon without them losing the benefits and preferences offered by the Kremlin. There are companies fully aware of the immorality of their actions, which try to play a low profile by covering their business with Russia, although their exports or imports are not critical, as is the case of natural gas purchases by Naturgy. Has Naturgy informed its consumers that they finance Putin’s war machine?
If companies do not feel the moral pressure to break these ties, then democratic governments should intervene by introducing a total embargo on imports of Russian oil and gas, prohibiting any business dealings with Russia, first and foremost, transfers of hydrocarbon extraction technologies and military use.
Democratic governments and judicial systems can also investigate and freeze assets belonging to or related to the Putin regime. Mechanisms need to be developed that will allow these funds to be expropriated and used for the recovery of Ukraine and the economies that suffered damage as a result of this aggression.
In order for these measures to have the greatest effect, they must be immediately supplemented by massive supply of armaments to Ukraine, since the future of the European continent and how long this war will last is now being decided on the battlefield. First of all, Ukraine needs means to close its skies against air strikes and heavy armaments, such as tanks, to carry out the offensive and recapture the territories occupied by the Russian invaders. Europe has these armaments and can follow the example of other countries that approved the shipment of such weapons.
The international community should show its maturity and raise the option of expelling Russia from international bodies. A state that behaves like a terrorist – whose troops capture nuclear power plants and blackmail the whole world with a threat of radioactive contamination, carry out acts of ethnic cleansing and commit war crimes – cannot sit at the table of the most important international forums that define the norms of civilized coexistence.
Last March 8, the Executive Council of the World Tourism Organization supported the initiative to launch the process of suspending Russia from the organization. I hope that the UNWTO General Assembly will approve this decision at its session at the end of April.
Taking this opportunity I call on all ambassadors representing their governments to the World Tourism Organization to give their voice in favor of the expulsion of the Russian Federation from this international body.
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