Arseniy Yatsenyuk at Kyiv Security Forum: A new common security model for Europe has to be developed

Russia’s military intervention against Ukraine ‘has dismantled the fragmented security system and, unfortunately, the world has not provided an adequate response to it,’ he stressed.

The Prime Minister pointed out that the actions of Russia towards Ukraine ‘are not a mere violation of international law, but a brazen international crime: ‘Notwithstanding dozens of brotherhood and cooperation treaties, it was only in 2014 that we have learned what Russian brotherhood looks like. It look like Russian tanks and troops conquering the Crimea. It looks much like the Russian militarists on the very borders of the Ukrainian state. And ‘independent protesters’ who seize SBU’s offices and remove hundreds of Kalashnikovs under the supervision of Russian agents, anti-Ukrainian and anti-State operations directly financed by Russian authorities’.

‘If anyone hopes for the Crimean issue to be stricken off the agenda, he so hopes in vain. The Ukrainian state will never recognize annexation of the Crimea and the day will come when Ukraine regains control over the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which is a Ukrainian territory,’ says Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

He is confident that the Western partners who ‘have provided an unprecedented political support to Ukraine, will continue to stand by unswervingly by the binding principles of international law and that no return to business as usual is possible this time’.

‘We appeal to our international partners so that we could get to the negotiating table and develop a new common European security model, which would not be just a commitment put in writing, but a guarantee against a situation where a nation, which was a member of G8 and is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, can violate international law in an unprecedented manner,’ head of the Ukrainian Government stressed.

In these circumstances, the international community is obliged to show a proper response to any aggressor ‘who believes that, being in possession of a nuclear weapons and significant military personnel, he is entitled to revise borders, conquer independent states and, effectively, review the outcomes of the World War II.’

‘I am sure that no other generation of the independent Ukraine has faced the challenges that we do. I am proud that our generation, every one of us who is facing these challenges, will overcome all of them. And our children will know that we have defended a great cause for them by preserving Ukraine, making it part of the EU, and regaining the territories that belong to the Ukrainian nation,’ he underlined.

‘Ukraine won freedom for its citizens. Now Ukraine has to win freedom in the world,’ Mr Yatsenyuk added.