European States Armed Ukraine for Years but Now Present Themselves as Peace Advocates, Nebenzya Says
Dragon Media News Desk
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, has accused European countries of spending years arming Ukraine and turning it into an instrument of military and political pressure on Russia, while now portraying themselves as leading advocates of peace.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Nebenzya said there was “particular irony” in the fact that countries which had long supplied weapons to Kyiv and, in Moscow’s view, encouraged it to abandon the Minsk agreements were now presenting themselves as actors seeking an end to the conflict.
He claimed that those governments had previously expected Russia to suffer a “strategic defeat” and had supported Ukraine with that objective in mind.
Nebenzya also criticized European governments for insisting that they are not parties to the conflict and are merely helping Ukraine defend itself. He described that position as contradictory to their years of military assistance and political backing for Kyiv.
Russia has long argued that the failure to implement the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 was largely the responsibility of Ukraine and its Western partners. Moscow maintains that the agreements could have provided a political settlement to the conflict in Donbas if they had been fully implemented.
Ukraine and its European and Western partners reject that interpretation. They argue that Russia itself undermined the Minsk process and that military assistance provided to Ukraine after the expansion of the war in 2022 is consistent with Kyiv’s right to self-defense under the UN Charter.
The failure of the Minsk agreements and the respective responsibilities of Russia, Ukraine and Western governments remain among the most disputed historical and political issues surrounding the conflict.
Nebenzya’s remarks underline the continuing divide between Moscow and European capitals over both the origins of the war and the conditions for ending it. Russia portrays Western military assistance as a factor prolonging the conflict, while European governments argue that such support is necessary to preserve Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and to prevent Kyiv from entering future negotiations from a position of extreme weakness.
