Third Committee, 7th plenary meeting - General Assembly, 81st session

🇷🇺 Russian Federation

1. 🇷🇺 Russian FederationFirst reply▶ 1:58:49 · 3 min

   Distinguished colleagues, I would like to address this to our Ukrainian counterpart. You are correct that you did not choose the most appropriate forum for yet another round of anti Russian insinuations for our part. By way of response, we just wish to recall that. It was the Kiev authorities and not the Russian Federation who over many years are consistently creating a legislative framework that serves to discriminate one ethnic group and is a grave violation of fundamental principles of international law. And in June 2026, I recall that that campaign reached its pinnacle with the adoption of a law that deprived the Russian language, which, as you know, is the native language for more than 80% of the population of Ukraine. It deprived it of the protection that continues to be provided to the languages of other minorities. We all see how the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is systematically removing Russian literature from libraries. This is accompanied by, in some cases, public burnings of books, and these videos are all available openly. You can Find and watch them. This also applies to the systemic discrimination against the church. The clergy is being persecuted, they're being searched, monasteries are being raided, and worshippers are being denied access to their places of worship. I don't wish to continue or ramp up this discussion by once again debunking all these outright myths about forced mobilization and the military activity, especially since we all know that this topic is not the topic for today's discussion, and this is certainly not an appropriate form for this. Thank you. I see no rec further requests for the floor. I now invite the committee to begin its consideration of Agenda Item 25 entitled Advancement of Women. The documentation under Agenda Item 25 is listed on IGOV. I now invite the committee to begin its general discussion of Agenda Item 25. I wish to remind delegations to strictly adhere to the time limits of four minutes for delegations speaking on behalf of a group of states and three minutes for interventions by individual delegations. The microphones will blink 30 seconds before the expiration of the time limit, and the microphones will be automatically switched off when the time is up. I also wish to remind delegations that the list of speakers for this item will close at the end of the meeting or when the list is exhausted, whichever is sooner.

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