🎙 Excerpt from statement by Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNGA Meeting on Ukraine 💬 The very idea of Russia “occupying” any of the [Ukraninan] territories is unfounded, both politically and legally. For us, the question of the status of Crimea and Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions is settled. Their residents made a conscious choice and decided to link their future with Russia. We regard these votes as an exercise of the right of peoples to freely determine their own future. We base our position on the principle of self-determination of peoples, as set out in the UN Charter, the 1966 International Covenants on Human Rights, the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law, and the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the CSCE. International law must apply equally to everyone. The right to self-determination cannot be recognised for some peoples and denied to others. In 1991, the Ukrainian authorities declared independence with reference to the right to self-determination. Yet today they are trying to prevent Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya from exercising that same right. The obvious can be denied as much as one likes through political rhetoric. But millions of people cannot be forced to give up their identity, their ties to the Russian world, their historical memory, and the choice they have made simply because this choice does not suit the Kiev regime and its Western supporters. Read in full