MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Irrefutable, independent evidence of Russia violating international law is a concern for us all: UK statement to the OSCE

Thank you Mr Chair for hosting this FSC Security Dialogue to mark 30 years of the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security. Thank you to the speakers for their powerful interventions.

At last month’s FSC Opening Session, the Russian Delegation described the Code and the Helsinki Final Act as our “lodestar”. We agree. In my statement today, I could have talked about:

1. Belarus supporting a State using force against another State; breaching para 8.
2. Or Russia rejecting the sovereign right other States to choose their treaties of alliance; breaching para 11.
3. Or Russia imposing military domination over any other participating State; breaching para 13.
4. Or Russia stationing armed forces in the territories of other States – namely Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – without a freely negotiated agreement, in line with internation law. Thereby breaching para 14.

Instead, Mr Chair, in the Code’s 30th year, I will focus on paragraphs 30, 31 and 34. These compel States to ensure that their armed and security forces abide by international law. I will highlight three elements: attacks against critical civilian infrastructure ahead of winter; conflict-related sexual violence; and prisoners of war. I will only cite independently-verified, internationally-respected sources.

Firstly, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission: “Repeated large-scale attacks since March by Russian armed forces against the electricity infrastructure of Ukraine have inflicted extensive harm and hardship on the country’s civilian population, with potentially devastating consequences as winter approaches”. The UN concludes that “the complex and coordinated nature of the strikes, the number of attacks across the country, and Russia’s regular official acknowledgment are indicators that the attacks against the electricity network are of a widespread and systematic nature”. As the Russian Federation knows, international humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks, which disproportionately kill civilians, and which destroy objects indispensable to the survival of civilians.

Secondly, in March this year the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine  “found that the war crime of rape, and in some cases the war crime of sexual violence, had been committed. Those acts also amounted to torture”. These heinous crimes must end.

Thirdly, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine reported “horrific treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war in several detention facilities in the Russian Federation”. The UN also recently found that “Russian authorities have subjected Ukrainian POWs to widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment”. This month, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine also found that 119 of 174 Ukrainian prisoners of war interviewed had suffered acts of sexual violence. Russia must abide by its Geneva Convention obligations and treat all civilian detainees and prisoners of war humanely and it must allow immediate unimpeded access to the ICRC.

Mr Chair, the Code commits us to act in solidarity if OSCE norms and commitments are violated. As catalogued by the OSCE Moscow Mechanisms, ODIHR and UN, there is irrefutable independent evidence of Russia violating international law, including international humanitarian law. As per the Code, such breaches are a “direct and legitimate” concern for us all.  This is why we again demand that Russia withdraws fully and unconditionally from the whole territory of Ukraine, within its internationally recognised borders. We demand independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of violations of international humanitarian law and abuses of international human rights law.  The victims deserve justice. And we will keep working tirelessly with our international partners to this end.