UN General Assembly session opened “not with fanfare, but with rocket explosions and screams of wounded Ukrainians” - Kyslytsia
Kyiv • UNN
Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said that the 79th session of the UN General Assembly opened to the sound of missile strikes on Ukraine. He called on the international community to increase pressure on Russia and Iran.
Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya said that the 79th session of the UN General Assembly opened “with the explosions of ballistic missiles and the screams of wounded civilians.” He called on the international community to increase pressure on Russia and Iran over the transfer of ballistic missiles by Teneran. Kyslytsia said this during a meeting of the UN Security Council on September 10, UNN reports with reference to the press service of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN.
Details
Kyslytsia indicated that the Ukrainian delegation has asked the UN Security Council to convene a meeting in connection with the recent surge in Russian missile terror against Ukrainians and Ukraine's critical infrastructure. He emphasized that the escalation must be addressed before it leads to an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.
It is telling that we are meeting in this room at the same time as we are participating in the opening of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which is currently underway. This will be the fourth session during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it opens not with the fanfare that usually accompanies the beginning of a new annual cycle of the UN General Assembly, but with the explosions of ballistic missiles and the screams of wounded civilians in Ukraine
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported at least 184 civilians killed and 856 wounded in Ukraine in August, the second highest number of civilian casualties in a month in 2024, just behind the July figures. According to Kyslytsia, this indicates that Russia intends to maintain “a dangerously high level of threats to civilians, considering them a priority target.
According to Ukraine's representative, Russia continues to use DPRK ballistic missiles in attacks on Ukraine.
We are also deeply concerned about reports of Iran's possible transfer of ballistic missiles to the Russian Federation. Deepening military-technical cooperation between Russia and Iran poses serious security threats not only to Ukraine, but also to the whole of Europe, the Middle East and the world in general. We call on the international community to increase pressure on Tehran and Moscow to protect international peace and security
He also said that the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine is investigating at least 28 cases of extrajudicial executions of 73 Ukrainian prisoners of war committed by the Russian military. Since November 2023, the number of Ukrainian servicemen who were captured and then executed by the Russians has increased significantly. Most of these cases were recorded in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“UN member states should remember these false justifications for the murder of Ukrainians on Ukrainian soil every time Russia tries to monopolize and abuse the common victory over Nazism in World War II here on the UN platform, whitewashing its current crimes,” he stressed.
He also repeated the call for the Security Council to consider the practice of executions, ill-treatment and torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian Federation.
In addition, Kyslytsia noted that Ukraine needs the strength and ability to destroy Russian means of “killing and destruction that are far from the Ukrainian cities that are their targets. That is, where they are located, and at a time when they pose a threat only to those who use them, and not to peaceful Ukrainians.”
