The report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) fails to mention Russia's disruptive role in the events in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
On Jul 28, the OHCHR posted the fourth report on the
results of work of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission for the period
from June 8 until July 15.
“Understanding the difficulty of the OHCHR tasks in terms of ensuring
an impartial and objective assessment of the situation in Ukraine, [we]
must acknowledge that the mission is failing to report the disruptive
role of the Russian Federation, which is evident not only to Ukrainian
authorities, both in the events in the east of our state and in the
worsening of the situation with human rights overall. Unfortunately,
this wasn’t included to the report or press release on the occasion of
its [report’s] publication. Appealing to ‘two parties’ while failing to
notice ‘the third one’ or rather ‘the first one’ seems to us at least
short-sighted, if not dangerous,” reads the statement by the ministry
posted on July 28.
The ministry positively assesses the report. However, it is necessary
to draw attention to the fact that by using academic approaches,
stating figures and facts without explaining them, the authors of the
report sometimes fail to fully reflect the whole meaning of what is
happening.
“Thus, when assessing the serious situation in eastern Ukraine and
noting the intensification of the anti-terrorist operation, the mission
avoids drawing attention to the ultimate causes of this situation – the
escalation of the activity of illegal armed groups; their refusal [to
accept] the peace plan proposed by the president; Russia’s constant
support of terrorists by supplying weapons, military equipment and
mercenaries; the continuation of the rein of terror towards peaceful
citizens; kidnappings; looting; and rising threat to the security of
Ukraine, the region and the whole world, as the tragedy with the
Malaysian Boeing has shown,” reads the statement.
In addition, when telling of the increase of propaganda “by both
parties” the authors of the report fail to mention the negative impact
of Russia’s propaganda on the situation in Ukraine; illegal actions by
corresponding Russian media in Ukraine, which are in fact the only
source of stirring up hatred; and increasing pressure in eastern
Ukraine.
According to the ministry, in the part of the report concerning ban
on a number of Russian TV channels in Ukraine, the mission fails to say
that the reason for that is the stirring up of ethnic discord by these
media and their “language of hatred” that High Commissioner for Human
Rights calls for an end to. The Foreign Ministry gave the example of
such actions – the story of the allegedly crucified Ukrainian boy on
Russian Channel One.
“Ukraine is ready to develop and deepen cooperation with the OHCHR
and other UN human rights organizations to provide proper protection of
human rights, taking into account the needs of people from all the
regions of our state,” reads the statement.
