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STORY: UN / UKRAINE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
TRT: 05:45
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 01 SEPTEMBER 2026, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, aerial view of the United Nations General Assembly building
01 SEPTEMBER 2026, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Annalena Baerbock, President, General Assembly:
“Four and a half years have passed since the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine and 12 years since the illegal annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol. Over the years, we have seen the human cost of these ongoing violations of the UN Charter, even though it hardly makes headlines anymore, yet the human toll continues to rise.”
4. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Annalena Baerbock, President, General Assembly:
“During the first half of 2026, the number of civilian victims was 114 per cent higher than during the same period of 2024. But these are only numbers, when we repeatedly hear casualty figures from Ukraine, as from so any wars around the world, we can become numb to the meaning.”
6. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Annalena Baerbock, President, General Assembly:
“Therefore, the General Assembly echoes its calls for an immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The Russian Federation to immediately, completely and unconditionally to withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine. The urgent need to end the war, the redoubling of diplomatic efforts to reduce the risk of further escalation and achieve a comprehensive just and lasting piece in Ukraine consistent with UN Charter.”
8. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Annalena Baerbock, President, General Assembly:
“It is about the credibility of this institution. If the borders can be changed by force, if sovereignty can be set aside when inconvenient, and if the UN Charter is upheld only when politics allow, then no member state can sleep peacefully anymore. The UN Charter protects all of us, but only when all of us are prepared to protect the Charter.”
10. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Mariana Betsa, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ukraine:
“Today, September 1st, marks the beginning of the school year in Ukraine. But it's not a good morning in Ukraine yet. On this day, eight people were killed in Kyiv, four people in Kyiv region, due to the massive ballistic and drone attack by Russia against peaceful civilians. Civilians killed in their beds at their home. Among those killed was a citizen of India, and this is a stark reminder that Russia's war and its indiscriminate attacks have consequences far beyond Ukraine.”
12. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Mariana Betsa, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ukraine:
“Russia has chosen a tactics of all-day drone barrages and a constant ballistic threat, deliberately targeting at exhausting our children and our civilians, along with the destruction of civilian infrastructure and threats to use nuclear weapons. The Russian leadership appears to believe that such terror can intimidate Ukraine, that such terror can lead to Ukraine surrender or capitulation. And let me make sure that everyone hears in this hall: Ukraine does not plan to surrender. Ukraine does not plan to capitulate. We will defend our land. We will defend our freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity, in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
14. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Mariana Betsa, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ukraine:
“Allow me to conclude by addressing those Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars who remain under Russian occupation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, as well as in the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and other regions. Ukraine has not forgotten you. The international community has not forgotten you. We continue to speak about you. We continue to raise this issue at each and every international forum. Ukraine will not rest until Russia withdraws its forces, until Ukraine restores its territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders, until the sovereignty of Ukraine is restored, until the just peace is restored in line with UN Charter.”
16. Med shot, Mariana Betsa speaking
17. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
18. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“In holding forth about Russian regions that supposedly ‘belong to them,’ the Kyiv authorities are deliberately steering the conversation away from what matters most — away from the reasons why people in these regions stopped tying their future to Ukraine, and away from how the Zelenskyy regime treats them today. The very framing of the question of Russia’s ‘occupation’ of any territories is untenable from both a political and a legal standpoint. The question of the status of Crimea and Sevastopol, the ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics,’ and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions is closed for us and is not open to discussion. Their residents made a conscious choice and tied their future to Russia.”
19. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
20. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“People were pushed towards that decision by the policies of the nationalist forces that came to power in Kyiv as a result of the unconstitutional coup of 2014 and that launched a campaign of persecution against the Russian-speaking population of the south-east. Those policies destroyed, once and for all, the trust that millions of citizens had in the Ukrainian authorities and determined their desire to return to Russia.”
21. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
22. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“Today, Kyiv’s hypocrisy is more than obvious. The Zelenskyy regime continues to call Russian regions "Ukrainian" and the people living there ‘its own citizens,’ while at the same time systematically striking them with missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.”
23. Wide shot, General Assembly Hall
Civilian casualties in Ukraine rose 114 per cent in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period two years earlier, General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock told a meeting on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
Speaking to the General Assembly in New York today (01 Sep), Baerbock cautioned against reading the toll as statistics alone, saying that when casualty figures from Ukraine and other wars are heard repeatedly, “we can become numb to the meaning.”
“Four and a half years have passed since the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine and twelve years since the illegal annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol,” she said. “Over the years, we have seen the human cost of these ongoing violations of the UN Charter, even though it hardly makes headlines anymore, yet the human toll continues to rise.”
The General Assembly President said what is at stake is the credibility of the Organization itself: “If the borders can be changed by force, if sovereignty can be set aside when inconvenient, and if the UN Charter is upheld only when politics allow, then no member state can sleep peacefully anymore.”
Ukraine's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Mariana Betsa said eight people were killed in Kyiv and four in the Kyiv region in a ballistic and drone attack on the first day of the school year, among them a citizen of India.
“Ukraine does not plan to surrender. Ukraine does not plan to capitulate. We will defend our land,” Betsa stated.
Russia's Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya commented on the framing of the debate, saying the status of Crimea and Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions “is not open to discussion.”
Nebenzya said residents of those regions “made a conscious choice and tied their future to Russia,” attributing their decision to what he called an unconstitutional change of power in Kyiv in 2014.
