🎙 Excerpts from statement by Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC briefing on Ukraine

🔹 It is particularly ironic that those now presenting themselves as champions of peace are the same states that spent years turning Ukraine into an instrument of military and political pressure on Russia. They also encouraged Kiev to abandon the Minsk agreements and openly hoped for Russia’s “strategic defeat.” Yet today they claim that they are “not parties to the conflict” and are “merely helping Ukraine defend itself.”

🔹 Today’s meeting is being held under the banner of the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. But is there really anything to celebrate? Ukraine’s history is being systematically rewritten. The Soviet legacy is being denigrated, while Hitler’s followers and collaborators, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russians, Jews, Poles and Ukrainians during WWII, are being glorified.

🔹Everything connected with our shared past is being erased. The Kiev authorities are showing open Russophobia and xenophobia, including towards their own citizens who are Russian not only by blood, but also by culture.

🔹 The Kiev regime has now clearly turned to outright terror against Russia’s civilian population. Between 10 and 16 August alone, 475 civilians were affected by attacks by the Ukrainian army: 406 people, including 16 children, were injured, while 69 people, including three children, were killed.

🔹 There will be no agreements that come at the expense of Russia’s security interests. Any attempt to impose a freeze on the conflict under the guise of a ceasefire – in reality, simply giving Kiev time to regroup and rearm – is doomed to fail. As long as we are confronted with ultimatums, terror and threats, while the realities on the ground are ignored, there can be no basis for meaningful political and diplomatic dialogue.

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💬 Russia's High Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova:

On August 26 in Gomel (Republic of Belarus), a 10-for-10 POW exchange took place. In return for the 10 Ukrainian POWs repatriated on August 24, the Ukrainian side returned 10 Russian servicemen.

☝️ It is a matter of principle for us that every Russian serviceman held in captivity knows that he has not been forgotten, that he is awaited at home, and that efforts to secure his return continue.

We thank everyone involved in this humanitarian mission. Special gratitude from the servicemen’s families and loved ones goes to President Vladimir Putin, Russia's Defence Ministry and the relevant agencies.

🤝 We also express our sincere appreciation to the Republic of Belarus for its assistance in bringing our servicemen home.

🎙 Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova on Britain's involvement in the Ukraine conflict

💬 The latest developments leave no doubt that all steps taken by the British government are geared towards achieving a single long-term objective – inflicting what they themselves call a “strategic defeat” on our country.

It is all doomed to fail, but London is fully implicated in this.

We have repeatedly warned that Ukrainian strikes against Russian territory using British weapons may be met with attacks on any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders.

Those responsible for war crimes, including crimes against the civilian population of our country, will be punished in accordance with their deeds. Inevitable retribution will also reach their accomplices and instigators.

We call on all residents of the United Kingdom to consider the inevitable catastrophic consequences of the hostile actions of their own authorities.

As for the British leadership, we urge it once again to carefully assess the situation and immediately, decisively and unambiguously abandon its hostile and aggressive policy, which can only prolong the agony of the Kiev regime and create the risk of the conflict being taken to an entirely new level.

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🎙 Excerpt from statement by Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Hunger and Conflict

💬 A significant factor destabilising the global food market – one that our Western colleagues prefer to gloss over – is the imposition of illegal unilateral restrictive measures that circumvent the Security Council [...]

Against this backdrop, attempts to hold Russia responsible for volatility in global food prices are wholly untenable. It is even more strange to hear such accusations now, when the Kiev regime is stepping up drone attacks against civilian vessels in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, using unmanned systems and intelligence provided by NATO and EU countries.

In July alone, more than one hundred such attacks were recorded against commercial vessels carrying Russian agricultural products. These strikes by the Ukrainian troops make no military sense and violate international law. They have already caused delays in supplies of grain, oilseeds and feed crops to international importers [...]

Since our Western colleagues are so enthusiastically championing the protection of global trade routes, they should rein in their protégés in Kiev, who are adding fuel to the fire of the food crisis.

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🎙Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova on Russia-UK relations

💬 Russia-UK relations have been in a deep crisis for a long time.

Political dialogue is frozen, there are no intergovernmental contacts, and diplomatic communication is limited to technical and routine matters. Economic ties have been almost entirely severed, as have cultural and academic exchanges. All of this is compounded by anti-Russian rhetoric from the British side, including through the British media.

The British side is solely responsible for this state of affairs. For a number of years – or, rather, decades – London has deliberately taken destructive steps and has itself been loudly advertising them.

This includes the illegitimate campaign to impose sanctions, launched well before 2022; the dismantling in 2024, amid the European security crisis, of military-diplomatic channels of communication through the expulsion of our defence attaché on a contrived pretext; and the launch in 2025 of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which introduced a discriminatory enhanced-tier regime for those seeking to engage with the Russian state.

All this has been accompanied by an entirely destructive policy on Ukraine, pursued at the cost of Ukrainian lives and the interests of British citizens [...]

By continuing along its current course, the United Kingdom is widening and deepening the conflict, acting in breach of its international legal obligations and contributing to the spread of dangerous military technologies across the continent and around the world.

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