Russian Embassy in Dhaka has refuted a recent report published in English and vernacular newspapers in Bangladesh quoting statement issued by 14 heads of diplomatic missions in Dhaka.
Russian Embassy in its statement said:
Our attention has been drawn to a publication in a Bangladeshi English-language newspaper signed by 14 heads of diplomatic missions. The idea of the article is that Russia, with no solid evidence, is accused of “aggression”, “invasion” and “illegal war in Ukraine”, which, they say, has led to the disruption of supply chains for Ukrainian grain to world markets and, as a consequence, destroyed the global security architecture.
Let’s start from the fact that on February 24, 2022, a decision to carry out Special Military Operation (SMO) was taken in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22. Let it be reminded that as a result of the bloody coup d’etat of 2014, a radical change of the socio-political system took place in Ukraine. Ukrainian statehood began to be built on the Nazi narrative of the denial of all Russian, including the identity, culture and traditions of the population of the vast territories of the south and east of the country.
The horrifying facts have become all too clear: according to the official statistic of the UN, 12 thousand people were killed in Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, the most part of them in Donbass. US and EU officials, who are now groundlessly accusing Russia of allegedly committing war crimes, have preferred to turn a blind eye to acts of genocide against the Russian-speaking population and deliberate Nazification in Ukraine.
Russia’s military and political leadership has repeatedly stated that Russian troops do not strike civilian objects, unlike the Kiev regime, which has repeatedly attacked our country’s transportation and social infrastructure.
The Crimean Bridge was twice under the attacks (in October 2022 and in July, 2023). Both the Kiev regime and the West are well aware that mostly tourists use this bridge. 1091 civilians, including children, died and 3533 were injured in 2022 in the Donetsk People’s Republic because of non-stop shelling of the cities by the Ukrainian military.
As far as so called “atrocities by Russian soldiers” are concerned it is necessary to state that all these accusations are provocative in nature and fabricated. A prime example is the staged murders of civilians in Bucha.
Russia has asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres many times to intercede and demand that Kiev publish the names of those whose bodies the Kiev regime presented to the international community in early April last year. Silence has been the only response. No reaction. This is no surprise. Today the West is a real “empire of lies.” The West has refused to release the facts in all other cases such as the terrorist attack against the Nord Stream pipelines. All proposals for transparent investigations have been blocked.
With the start of the SMO, the Kiev regime began to use terrorist methods regularly everywhere. Using Western weapons, Ukrainian neo-Nazis are shelling residential districts. They are resupplying firing positions and deploying arms depots in schools, hospitals and residential buildings, using civilians as a “living shield.” They are also shooting refugees and POWs.
It is strange to hear accusations from the Western diplomats against Russia, which ostensibly uses food as a weapon. We would like to recall that, according to the data published by the European Commission and the statistical office Eurostat (available in the public domain), in 2022 the import of cereals in the EU compared to 2021 in value terms increased by 106% (from 6 to 12.7 billion euros). This trend continued in 2023, with 46% growth in the first half of the year. At the same time, exports of cereals from the EU increased in value terms by only 41% in 2022 and even less by 5% in the first quarter of 2023. Thus, there is every reason to say that the EU is actively buying grain on foreign markets, including Ukraine. The goal is obvious – to form grain food reserves and to get additional financial support from exports of processed grain products.
Ukraine remains one of the key grain suppliers to the EU. In the first eight weeks of 2023/2024 agricultural year, the EU has already purchased 488 thousand tons of Ukrainian wheat (almost thrice as much as in the same period of the previous year). According to the European Commission as of August 2023, since the SMO had begun, over 60 % of Ukrainian grain exports went through the so-called “corridors of solidarity”. The above figures confirm that the European Union has purposefully used Black Sea Initiative to ensure its own food security, as well as to obtain additional export earnings from the sale of cereals and processed products abroad.
It’s even more bizarre to hear from the Western diplomats that “Russia’s continued attacks will be long-standing damage to the Ukrainian agricultural sector”. This is another attempt to put things upside down. One would like to ask: do not the supplies of cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells by the United States to the Kiev regime, which are used on the territory of the new entities of the Russian Federation – the Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, – pose a threat to environmental security?
Suffice it to recall the NATO aggression in Yugoslavia, where Americans together with Europeans used about 2,000 cluster bombs containing 380,000 sub-munitions banned in many countries (The Convention on Cluster Munitions is signed by Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom etc.). The amount of depleted uranium that reached the Balkan states during the NATO aggression would be enough to create 170 atomic bombs like the one the US dropped on Hiroshima (Japan) on August 6, 1945.
The most frequent consequences of depleted uranium for human health are thyroid diseases, malignant diseases, and various fetal mutations during pregnancy. The use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans and later on in the Persian Gulf has resulted in global environmental contamination not only at the bombing sites but also thousands of kilometers away.
This is yet another confirmation of the West’s ongoing policy of exploiting countries for its own resource support in the interests of securing its claims to world domination, maintaining a high level of its own welfare, military and economic dominance. Against the background of attempts to refuse Russian energy carriers, coal-fired generation and use of traditional fuel increased in many countries in the EU in 2021-2022, which jeopardized plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, in the international arena, the Westerners continue to urge the rest of the world to accelerate the energy transition solely through renewable energy sources and abandon fossil fuels.
We note that the “collective work” of 14 Western diplomats was published on the day of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Larov’s working visit to Dhaka. In talks with his counterpart H.E. A.K.A. Momen and H.E. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister, he gave comprehensive comments on the reasons for launching the SMO, the current situation around and in Ukraine, and the conditions for the completion of the special operation (demilitarization, denazification of Ukraine, its non-aligned status, recognition of the new territories and Crimea as part of Russia).
Westerners’ attempts to smear our country in the eyes of the Bangladeshi people will not succeed. Russia remains and will be a reliable, time-tested friend of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
