Maxim Buyakevich on the increasing military involvement of certain NATO member countries in further confrontation in and around Ukraine, 7 March 2024

STATEMENT BY MR. MAXIM BUYAKEVICH,

DEPUTY PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION,

AT THE 1464th MEETING OF THE OSCE PERMANENT COUNCIL

7 March 2024

On the increasing military involvement

of certain NATO member countries

in further confrontation in and around Ukraine

Madam Chairperson,

We emphasize the growing involvement of NATO countries in the armed confrontation in and around Ukraine. The actions and rhetoric by the representatives of certain member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance who are deliberately contributing to the escalation of military tensions have nothing to do with a striving for a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian conflict – they constitute, rather, direct war propaganda. Over the past few weeks, the leadership in Canada, Czechia, France and the Netherlands have, in some form or another, stated their readiness to send troops to Ukraine.

The Western press no longer conceals evidence of how the NATO countries are using Ukraine and its territory for the purposes of combating Russia. What Russian diplomats have been saying for several years is gradually beginning to filter into the public consciousness in the West. Specifically the fact that the United States of America and its closest satellites are waging a proxy war against Russia, using Ukraine and the Ukrainians as expendable material.

In a report published by The New York Times on 25 February that cites current and former Ukrainian and US officials (all in all, the journalists conducted over 200 interviews), information is to be found on how the CIA for many years used areas of Ukraine bordering on Russia to project threats deep into Russian territory, on the training of subversive groups made up of staff and agents of the Ukrainian intelligence services, on the transformation of Ukraine into an anti-Russian “intelligence-gathering hub”, and so forth. Reference is made to no fewer than 12 special bases that were set up long before the start of the Russian special military operation.

We would add that this work is most certainly being performed with the co-ordination and direct participation of the British intelligence services. According to the available information, the real number of such “secret bases” runs to dozens upon dozens across the whole of Ukraine.

Many questions were raised by the content of a conversation among high-ranking officers of the German armed forces – specifically among Gräfe, the department head in charge of operations and exercises at the Bundeswehr’s Air Force Forces Command, Inspector of the Air Force Gerhartz and Air Operations Command officials Fenske and Frohstedte – that was leaked to the media. The participants in that conversation, the authenticity of which has been acknowledged by the authorities in Berlin, discussed in detail scenarios for carrying out strikes against Russian territory, including critical civilian infrastructure facilities (the Crimean Bridge). They had a substantive exchange of views on destroying or damaging such facilities using German long-range precision missiles that could be supplied to the Kyiv regime. Moreover, the participants in the conversation discussed various forms of support for such attacks, including specialized and technical support for the operation and maintenance of Taurus missile systems.

The German officers’ conversation has become public knowledge – a complete audio recording and transcript are publicly available. We note in this connection the attempts by the German authorities, upon the Bundeswehr’s request, to block their dissemination in the media and on the Internet. There is clearly a striving at work to conceal, above all from the German public, most unsavoury facts about the plans to intensify Germany’s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. Significantly, following confirmation of the recording’s authenticity, disciplinary reviews regarding the leak were launched. The publication of the recording was, moreover, described by German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius as, I quote, “a hybrid attack aimed at disinformation” and as part of an “information war”. However, given that Germany has officially confirmed that the recording was authentic, how can there be any talk of disinformation here?

Incidentally, the German authorities are assiduously trying to shift the focus of public attention towards the fact of the leak itself, and also towards the vulnerability of German communication systems. This is being done deliberately to prevent the public from discussing directly the content of the conversation, namely the involvement of officers from NATO countries in the planning and execution of combat operations against Russian soldiers on Russian soil.

It is telling that an extremely sharp reaction was triggered in several NATO countries, especially the United Kingdom, by the German officers’ self-revelatory remarks. After all, in their conversation they not only sketched out logistic arrangements for equipping Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s formations but also acknowledged the fact that in the areas controlled by the Kyiv regime there are “lots of folks with an American accent going around in civilian clothes”, who are helping to plan and carry out combat operations. If that is not a proxy war, then what is?

It has long been obvious that the Ukrainians themselves have no desire to be sent off to the front as cannon fodder against their brother Russians to serve the interests of the “Anglo-Saxons” and their closest NATO satellites. Especially in view of the Ukrainian armed forces’ daily personnel losses, which over the past weeks have been exceeding 1,000 troops per day. The numbers of people seeking by any means to avoid mobilization and cross the Ukrainian border into EU countries are at an all-time high. It is no coincidence that, in this connection, the Kyiv regime has introduced enhanced measures to counter conscription evasion by those of military age. Henceforth the tactical employment of weapons, including drones, is permitted at the border. The first instance of “fugitives” coming under fire took place already on 27 February, namely on the Zakarpattia region’s border with Hungary, when border guards opened fire from their rifles to detain eight Ukrainian citizens who had each paid 8,000 dollars to fixers offering to help them circumvent checkpoints and cross the border unhindered.

That the Kyiv regime is in an unsustainable position, is evident to many. A few days ago, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné drew attention with some alarmist remarks. He said that Russia’s success in Ukraine would result in major financial losses for European countries, and that from an economic point of view the situation in the EU countries would become catastrophic.

It does not surprise us that in the European Union they do not wish to pay for their foreign policy miscalculations and mistakes. However, it is high time that they realized the most important point, namely that the longer the Western countries’ participation in the Ukrainian conflict lasts, the worse the position of the Kyiv regime, the less scope there is for diplomacy and the greater the scale of the impending economic catastrophe for both Ukraine and its sponsors. Nor will the situation be turned around by attempts to use Russian assets held in the West to meet the military needs of Mr. Zelenskyy’s formations with a view to prolonging the fighting. This will merely entail even more casualties and destruction, and it will also inflict irrevocable damage on what is left of the Western financial system’s reputation.

Now, the representatives of Western countries that are squaring off against Russia in Ukraine are unfazed by the fact that, while fearing economic turmoil within their own borders, they are deliberately doing everything they can to cause the economy to collapse in Russia itself, to facilitate mass impoverishment of the population and, as a result, to trigger internal socio-political destabilization in our country. This they consider to be par for the course. Yet they do not wish to see such a disaster happen on their own turf. However, it goes without saying that these anti-Russian aspirations are doomed to fail.

I would remind you that more than 18,000 restrictive measures – a world historical record – have been imposed against our country. They are all illegitimate by their very nature, insofar as such unilateral measures run counter to the Charter of the United Nations, international law and other principles and norms governing international economic interaction.

Russia’s gross domestic product increased by 3.6 per cent in 2023 against the backdrop of an economic downturn in European countries. This is proof that the so-called sanctions in no way could have any impact on the foreign policy course of Russia, which has, by far, many more powerful friends and partners around the world than it has ill-wishers. As for the economic problems in European countries as such, here it is appropriate to recall an instructive Russian saying: “He that digs a pit for another will fall into it himself.” And so there could not be a better time to study Russian culture and history, ladies and gentlemen!

The unjustified self-confidence and overestimation of their own capabilities shown by Western countries will, to be sure, ultimately cost them very dear. They will pay a high price for their geopolitical miscalculations and mistakes, for their indiscriminateness in the choice of means to achieve their goals, for their disregard for Russia’s legitimate security interests and their striving to arrest the development of our country and weaken it by waging a proxy war against it. As they systematically bring closer the prospect of a direct clash between NATO and Russia, they bear full responsibility for absolutely all of the negative consequences of such an outcome. There will be no victors in such a conflict – at least not in the West.

In that regard, never has it been more fitting to recall what the Chief of the Defence Staff of the Swedish Armed Forces, Michael Claesson, said back in January 2023 – I quote: “As a matter of fact, Russia has the unpleasant habit of actually doing what it says.” At the end of the day, it is an unpleasant one only for the Western countries, since they behave in exactly the opposite manner.

While in Prague on 5 March, the French President said that the EU countries were approaching “a juncture for Europe where it is advisable for us not to be cowards”. By this he evidently meant the prospect of increased military involvement by the NATO countries in the Ukrainian conflict. However, true courage, to our mind, implies looking for a diplomatic and just solution to problems, as opposed to stoking military confrontation on the European continent.

Russia has repeatedly stated the need for the development of a just multipolar world order. It has also announced its readiness to use political and diplomatic means to achieve the goals of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the elimination of threats to the security of our country posed by NATO countries from Ukrainian territory. And if that readiness is not reciprocated, the special operation will be continued by military means until the tasks set have been fully accomplished.

Thank you for your attention.