Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUN / UKRAINE RUSSIA ELECTIONS
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 15 MARCH 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN Headquarters
15 MARCH 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Med shot, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, United Nations:
“Russia's intention to conduct presidential elections from today, 15 March until 17 March in areas of Ukraine under its control are unacceptable. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented that past so-called referenda and local elections have been conducted in a coercive environment under international humanitarian law. The occupying power, in this case the Russian Federation, is obligated to uphold the laws of Ukraine in the occupied territories.”
5. Wide shot, Council
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, United Nations:
“In Crimea OHCHR has consistently reported on the unlawful imposition of Russian citizenship and laws, intimidation, and pressure to participate in illegal electoral processes. Suppression of freedom of expression and religion, and other human rights violations. Similar patterns of violations are emerging in the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Since December 2023, our human rights colleagues have recorded a disturbing increase in reports of allegations of extrajudicial executions of prisoners of war by Russian forces.”
7. Wide shot, Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy speaking
8. Med shot, DiCarlo and Council President
9. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“You convened an entire Security Council meeting to criticize Russia for Russia's conduct of democratic elections on territories which administratively, politically, and economically are part of our country, like it or not. And what about you in terms of your vaunted democratic standards? How would you characterize the single-handed cancellation of elections by the head of state? How would you react if, for example, Joe Biden were to cancel the presidential elections in the US, or if Emmanuel Macron were to cancel elections in France? Or is this something which we have yet to see?”
10. Wide shot, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya speaking
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Sergiy Kyslytsya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ukraine:
“We therefore call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia's illegitimate intention to imitate presidential elections in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, to refrain from recognising the results of these elections and to impose sanctions on those involved in the organisation in conduct. We also call on the UN members to hold to account their nationals who, despite warnings from the Ukrainian side, showed up in the temporarily occupied territories as quote unquote, international observers of the fake elections.”
10. Wide shot, end of Council session
Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo today (13 Mar) told the Security Council that “Russia's intention to conduct presidential elections from today, 15 March until 17 March in areas of Ukraine under its control are unacceptable.”
DiCarlo noted that the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine “has documented that past so-called referenda and local elections have been conducted in a coercive environment under international humanitarian law.”
She stressed that “the occupying power, in this case the Russian Federation, is obligated to uphold the laws of Ukraine in the occupied territories.”
The Under-Secretary-General said that in Crimea, the UN Human Rights office (OHCHR) “has consistently reported on the unlawful imposition of Russian citizenship and laws, intimidation and pressure to participate in illegal electoral processes, suppression of freedom of expression and religion, and other human rights violations.”
Similar patterns of violations, she said, “are emerging in the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.”
Since December 2023, DiCarlo added, OHCHR has recorded “a disturbing increase in reports of allegations of extrajudicial executions of prisoners of war by Russian forces.”
Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said today’s Council session had been convened “to criticize Russia for Russia's conduct of democratic elections on territories which administratively, politically and economically are part of our country, like it or not.”
Polyanskiy asked, “how would you characterize the single-handed cancellation of elections by the head of state? How would you react if, for example, Joe Biden were to cancel the presidential elections in the US, or if Emmanuel Macron were to cancel elections in France? Or is this something which we have yet to see?”
Presidential elections had been scheduled to take place in Ukraine at the end of this month but were cancelled as the country is under Martial Law.
Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya called on the international community “to resolutely condemn Russia's illegitimate intention to imitate presidential elections in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, to refrain from recognising the results of these elections and to impose sanctions on those involved in the organisation in conduct.”
He also called on UN member states “to hold to account their nationals who, despite warnings from the Ukrainian side, showed up in the temporarily occupied territories as quote unquote, international observers of the fake elections.”
This will be the eighth Russian Federation’s presidential elections.
