Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of U.S. special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker’s conference call with journalists on Nov. 9.
Key excerpts:
On Russian plans for an election on Nov. 11 in the Kremlin-controlled areas of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine
“We do support the idea of elections, and that is part of the Minsk agreements. These should be elections for the legitimate local authorities that exist within Ukraine’s constitutional framework. These would be things like mayors of the cities or some of the oblast administrations, and those elections should be held when the territory is secure and safe, when you have freedom and people can speak freely, candidates can campaign freely, there is freedom of movement. And none of those conditions exist right now. So the elections being held, that Russia is organizing for November 11th are wholly illegitimate. We urge that they be stopped and there is no way that anyone from Europe, the United States, et cetera, can give any recognition to the results of such elections.”
On new U.S. sanctions against Russia
“These are sanctions on three individuals and nine entities that are supporting Russia’s attempts to integrate the Crimea region of Ukraine, through private investment and privatization projects, or those who are engaging in serious human rights abuses.
This is a follow-on, I should add, to Secretary of State Pompeo’s July 25th declaration that the United States does not and will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
These designations underscore the U.S.’s steadfast partnership with Ukraine and the European Union and represent a unified opposition to Russia’s purported annexation and occupation of Crimea and use of force to control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.
The United States is leveraging new authorities to target Russia’s serious human rights abuses in parts of Ukraine that the United States has determined are forcibly occupied or otherwise controlled by Russia and other reprehensible acts, human rights abuses, in furtherance of the Kremlin’s agenda.
What is notable here is that we have said for a long time that Russia has 100 percent command and control of what is happening in the occupied areas there — military forces, political entities, and direct economic activity. This is the first step taken in the form of sanctions that explicitly recognizes or explicitly is based on the notion that Russia actually controls the Donbas and eastern Ukraine.”
On the human cost of Russia’s war
“There are crossing points between the occupied area and the rest of Ukraine. These are very dangerous crossing points. Nonetheless, there are about 1.3 million crossings per month. It is, people are crossing largely from the occupied area to the rest of Ukraine and back in order to get basic supplies and goods and access to government services.
Many of the people who remain in the occupied areas are the elderly. Younger people having left to avoid being pressed into military service or to find jobs and then repatriate some of the money back to their relatives that remain behind.
There have been more Ukrainian soldiers killed, more casualties in the conflict in Ukraine than Americans in the entire length of the war in Afghanistan, to give you a sense of the scale of the fighting and the casualties that Ukraine has suffered there. Over the life span of the conflict, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are estimating about 7,000 total casualties and over 2500 killed in action.”
Read the entire transcript here
