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STORY: UN / UKRAINE MINSK AGREEMENT
TRT: 05:21
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 17 FEBRUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, UN Headquarters
17 FEBRUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Wide shot, Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenča addressing Council
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Miroslav Jenča, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and Americas, Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DDPPA) and Peace Operations (DPO):
“The Minsk Agreements have taught us that agreeing on the ceasefire or the signing of an agreement alone do not ensure a durable end to the violence. Ensuring that the conflict does not reoccur and does not escalate will require genuine, genuine political will and understanding of its multidimensional complexity for Ukraine and for the region.”
5. Med shot, Council dais, musician and peace activist Roger Waters on screens
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Roger Waters, Civil Peace Activist:
“Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin have spoken to one another on the telephone. That gentleman is or could be, in this musician's humble opinion, a move in the right direction. Maybe there is a glimmer of light at the end of this dark tunnel of war. It's come three years and hundreds of thousands of priceless lives too late.”
7. Wide shot, Council, Waters on screen
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“The Minsk agreements were something which the Western sponsors of the Kyiv regime needed purely as a smokescreen to provide armaments to Ukraine and to prepare it for war with Russia. And this ultimately compelled us nearly three years ago, to begin the special military operation in the Ukraine. We repeatedly in this chamber, and not just in this chamber, we stated that had the Minsk agreements been implemented in good faith by Ukraine and its sponsors, there would have been nothing, nothing of what subsequently transpired would have occurred.”
9. Med shot, Jenča and Ukraine’s representative Khrystyna Hayovyshyn
10. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“As we called for over the course of many past months, diplomacy has finally been actively brought into the game. And opportunities have emerged for the prompt end to the hot phase of the Ukrainian crisis. Naturally, all of those who are currently working towards that end are analysing, inter alia, all previous attempts to bring to an end the armed confrontation in the east of Ukraine. Paramount among these, of course, is the Minsk agreement. What lessons do the present negotiators need to draw from the process which so abjectly failed three years ago?”
11. Wide shot, US representative John Kelley addressing Council
12. SOUNDBITE (English) John Kelley, Political Minister Counsellor, Permanent Mission to the United Nations, United States:
“We want a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine, but we must start by recognizing and then returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0.”
13. Wide shot, UK representative Barbara Woodward addressing Council
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Barbara Woodward, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, United Kingdom:
“We can and must create the conditions for a just and lasting peace which protects Ukraine's security, sovereignty and independence. This will require robust security arrangements from the outset, which ensure that Russia is never able to invade again. Putin has shown time and again that he will break a weak deal. The UK will continue to play our part. We will continue to provide concrete support for Ukraine’s self-defence and security for as long as it is needed. And we are clear that Ukraine's voice must be at the heart of any negotiations.”
15. Wide shot, Hayovyshyn addressing Council
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Khrystyna Hayovyshyn, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ukraine:
“While Ukraine took unprecedented steps to find ways to achieve a peaceful settlement and put forward numerous proposals to this end, Russia spare no effort to obstruct the process under various pretexts, effectively stalling the work of the tri littoral contact group long before the full-scale invasion.”
17. Med shot, Nebenzya
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Khrystyna Hayovyshyn, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ukraine:
“Weak agreements will not bring real peace; they will only lead to the greater war. That is why we are working with our partners to find strong and effective solutions. Peace cannot be bought, especially not at the expense of law and principles, especially principle of territorial integrity and sovereign equality. This cannot be replaced with appeasement. History offers many relevant examples. Our task is to avoid repeating past mistakes, as the cost of those mistakes is more blood, suffering and destruction.”
19. Wide shot, end of briefing
On the tenth anniversary of the Minsk Agreements, US representative John Kelley told the Security Council that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders was “an unrealistic objective,” while musician and peace activist Roger Waters welcomed United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin talks on Ukraine as “a move in the right direction.”
Briefing Council members on the situation in Ukraine, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia, and the Americas Miroslav Jenča said the ten-year anniversary of the Minsk Agreements has taught us that “agreeing on the ceasefire or the signing of an agreement alone do not ensure a durable end to the violence,” and “ensuring that the conflict does not reoccur and does not escalate will require genuine, genuine political will and understanding of its multidimensional complexity for Ukraine and for the region.”
Waters expressed hope that, “maybe there is a glimmer of light at the end of this dark tunnel of war. It's come three years and hundreds of thousands of priceless lives too late.”
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told the Council that “the Minsk agreements were something which the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime needed purely as a smokescreen to provide armaments to Ukraine and to prepare it for war with Russia.”
Nebenzya said, “had the Minsk agreements been implemented in good faith by Ukraine and its sponsors, there would have been nothing, nothing of what subsequently transpired would have occurred.”
The Russian Ambassador said, “diplomacy has finally been actively brought into the game. And opportunities have emerged for the prompt end to the hot phase of the Ukrainian crisis,” and referring to the Minsk Agreements said, “what lessons do the present negotiators need to draw from the process which so abjectly failed three years ago?”
The US representative, for his part said, “we want a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine, but we must start by recognizing and then returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0.”
UK representative Barbara Woodward said, “the conditions for a just and lasting peace which protects Ukraine's security, sovereignty and independence” must be create, and stressed that “Ukraine's voice must be at the heart of any negotiations.”
Ukraine’s representative Khrystyna Hayovyshyn said, “weak agreements will not bring real peace, they will only lead to the greater war. That is why we are working with our partners to find strong and effective solutions. Peace cannot be bought, especially not at the expense of law and principles, especially principle of territorial integrity and sovereign equality. This cannot be replaced with appeasement. History offers many relevant examples. Our task is to avoid repeating past mistakes, as the cost of those mistakes is more blood, suffering and destruction.”
Today’s meeting coincided with the tenth anniversary of resolution 2202, which endorsed the now-defunct Minsk agreements of 2015 signed by the representatives of European security pact, the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine and leaders of the pro-Russian separatists in the occupied east of Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The unanimously adopted resolution included a package of measures as its annex, including an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, as well as the withdrawal of all heavy weapons by both sides by equal distances to create a security zone.
