Russia: Press Conference concluding Security Council presidency (28 Feb 2022)
Press briefing by the President of the Security Council for February 2022 and Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia.

Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said the “demilitarization and de-nazification of Ukraine” would bring peace to the country and stressed that having Ukraine as a NATO member on Russia’s border would be an “existential threat” that his country would “not allow to happen.”

Speaking to reporters in New York today (28 Feb) at the end of his country’s presidency of the Security Council, the Russian ambassador said his mission received a letter from the United States declaring 12 Russian diplomats as persona-non-grata and demanded they leave the country by the 7th of March.

Nebenzia said, “This is sad news and again another demonstration of gross disrespect of the host country agreement, to their commitments, as I said, within the framework of their obligations, both under the UN Charter and the host country agreement; and the Vienna Conventions obviously.”

The Russian ambassador said his country had not planned to conduct military operations in Ukraine unless the Ukrainian military and authorities directly threaten those the people of Donbass. He said Russia has credible information that a military operation was planned by the Ukrainian military, making the Russian move inevitable.

Asked what would bring peace to Ukraine, the Nebenzia said, “We clearly said, and that is demilitarization and de-nazification of Ukraine, which creates a clear and immediate danger to us. Also, within the context of geopolitical stability, because, as President Putin said, that if not today or tomorrow, one day in 30 or 50 years, Ukraine might and will perhaps become a NATO member. That will move NATO to the Russian border, and that will be an existential threat for us. And that is something that we will not allow to happen.”

The Russian ambassador said President Volodymyr Zelinsky’s Jewish heritage was irrelevant as the “real power in Ukraine” belongs to the “radicals and Neo-Nazis who defy the President, who have their own agenda, who rule the ball in Ukraine in fact.”

Nebenzia said President Zelinsky, “who came with a landslide victory of 74 percent of the population, promising to end the war – first thing on the list of his priorities, but then he was slowly backing off this, and he finished practically playing into the hands of those radical and neo-Nazi organizations.”

The Russian ambassador said Soviet leaders were naïve to believe that NATO would keep their promise without making real commitments not to expand east after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

He said, “I think NATO has changed the European security architecture already back after 1997 when it started to expand to the east contrary to their promises, unfortunately not commitments.”

Asked about civilian casualties and explosions in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, Nebenzia said there were no credible reports of civilian casualties and stressed that the Russian military was not targeting civilians. He said, “Explosions in Kiev are not true because if there are any explosions, these are in the suburbs of Kiev, as far as I know, and they refer to the military infrastructure that the Russian Armed Forces are targeting.”

Asked about the decision to put Russia’s nuclear force on high alert, Nebenzia said President Vladimir Putin decides to do so as a “kind of deterrence” in response to “some disturbing statements from NATO leaders in that regard in relation to Russia.”

Screenshot Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfaTQSXBUsU