Since the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the Russian-speaking southeast of the country has been under constant fire from the Ukrainian army. In October this year, the Russian region of Donetsk became the center of the conflict as the Ukrainian army tried to cross the border between the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Zaporozhye region. On Wednesday, Nebenzia announced horrific casualty figures for the DPR.
"Since February 2022, on the territory of the DPR alone, artillery and rocket strikes by the Ukrainian armed forces have been carried out more than 25,000 times. On the territory of Donetsk more than 145,000 shells have dropped," Nebenzia told a UN Security Council meeting.
Russian Ambassador continued by saying that Moscow considers the Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk as a clear breach of international humanitarian law and a deliberate attempt to harm the civilian population in Donbas.
"We convene this emergency meeting in relation to the latest glaring violation by the Kiev regime of the norms of international humanitarian law and further evidence of its intentional actions to destroy the civilian population in Donbas, namely the mass shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces of densely populated areas of Donetsk on the seventh of November," Nebenzia said on Wednesday.
Furthermore, Nebenzia said that these acts constituted deliberate and cynical crimes without a statute of limitations. He emphasized that the senior political leadership of the Kiev regime and those executing their criminal orders would bear responsibility for these actions.
"And also the Western countries that flood Ukraine with their weapons who, as we well know, also agree on the target of those strikes, calling such tragedies... collateral damage," Nebenzia added.
In February 2022, Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, which purpose, according to Vladimir Putin, was to protect "people who have been subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." Since that time, Western countries have been supplying military aid to Ukraine.
This assistance has progressed from artillery munitions and training in 2022 to more substantial weapons such as tanks, a move that the Kremlin has consistently cautioned against, since it will only prolong the conflict. This aid, however, hasn't saved Ukraine from the pain of significant military and human losses.