Any transfer of weapons and ammunition must comply with the applicable international legal framework, the United Nations disarmament chief told the Security Council today, as delegates warned against such arms fuelling the Russian Federation’s war on Ukraine.
Briefing the 15-member organ, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said that since the last briefing on this topic two weeks ago, the provision of military assistance and transfer of arms and ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine have continued. She also noted reports of States transferring, or planning to transfer, weapons such as uncrewed aerial vehicles, ballistic missiles and ammunition to the Russian Armed Forces.
The use of armed uncrewed aerial vehicles and missiles by the Russian Federation continues to cause civilian deaths and injuries as well as damage to civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, she said, also noting reports of the latter’s cross-border strikes using missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles on the aggressor’s territory.
“Armed uncrewed aerial vehicles and missiles must not be used in a manner inconsistent with international humanitarian law,” she said, stressing the importance of distinguishing civilians from combatants, and civilian objects from military objectives. “Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited,” she emphasized.
In the discussion that followed, the representative of the Russian Federation accused the United States and the United Kingdom of supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine in continuing to systematically use toxic substances and chemical riot control agents. Western countries continue to talk about the hostilities in Ukraine because “they bring them great profit”, he said, adding: London gave Kyiv “a large amount of military assistance that needed to be disposed of” – “so as you can see this is very convenient”.
“That was quite a bit of propaganda,” said the United States delegate, rejecting such accusations and highlighting the Russian Federation’s contract with Iran for the supply of hundreds of missiles for use throughout Ukraine. This “represents a dramatic escalation and a highly destabilizing development”, he said, adding that this partnership “not only poses a threat to Ukrainian and European security but also directly enables Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East”. China also has a role in enabling the Russian Federation’s illegal assaults through its exports, ranging from service inputs to raw materials, he said.
“China did not create the Ukraine crisis, nor we are a party to the conflict,” its delegate said, asserting that Beijing has not supplied weapons to either party. His country has been working hard to facilitate peace talks. In May, China and Brazil jointly issued a six-point consensus on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, he said, asking the United States to cease discrediting and obstructing Beijing’s diplomatic efforts.
The representative of the United Kingdom said that the focus of today’s meeting should not be Western support for a sovereign State’s legitimate right to defend itself, but rather the transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to the Russian Federation, which poses a direct threat to European security and stability elsewhere. “Iranian close-range ballistic missiles will soon reach European soil,” he warned. Agreeing, France’s delegate urged Tehran to immediately stop such supplies. His country is working with partners to “provide an unequivocal response” to these transfers, including designating individuals and entities involved in them, he said.
Several speakers also expressed concern about the strengthened military cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Among them was the representative of the Republic of Korea, who warned that Moscow’s ongoing use of weapons from Pyongyang is causing significant damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. A Ukrainian military research institute recently confirmed that “debris from missiles used to attack Kyiv in August was of North Korean origin”, he added.
“Security Council meetings like this, routinely requested by Russia, are nothing but a waste of time and resources of both the UN and the international community,” said Japan’s diplomat. Moscow appears to want solutions to the problem, but “there is only one problem that needs to be addressed immediately” – the Kremlin’s violation of the Charter of the United Nations. The representative of Slovenia, Council President for September, spoke in her national capacity to share her observation. “We are approaching the discussions on weapons transfers from the wrong end,” she said, declaring: “We will not accept victim-blaming.”
Echoing those views, the speaker for Switzerland underscored that Ukraine has the right to ensure its security and defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty. The representative of Sierra Leone – noting a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on populated areas in Moscow on 10 September, as well as 2,000 Ukrainian children killed or injured since the start of the conflict – called for a diplomatic and political solution, as did the representative of Algeria, who said: “The flow of weapons to areas of conflict only fuels the fire.”
For its part, Ecuador called for effective measures to prevent the diversion, illicit trade and improper use of arms and munitions to avoid sowing greater instability in Ukraine. It is vital, its delegate said, “to avoid these weapons reappearing and causing damage in other regions of the world including my region, Latin America”. Mozambique’s delegate, while acknowledging the sovereign right of States to self-defence, including arms transfer when necessary, cautioned that if not carefully managed, arms transfer can lead to not just conflict escalation but also, ultimately, diversion of resources from critical social sectors.
The representative of Malta was among those expressing shock at the shelling on 12 September that hit the site of a planned frontline aid distribution in the Donetsk region, killing three staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “We strongly condemn this blatant disregard for international humanitarian law,” he said. After all, any lasting solution to this conflict must be achieved through diplomacy and good-faith negotiations, said Guyana’s representative, “not through military action or a cycle of meetings that proffer no solutions nor yield concrete outcomes to change the situation on the ground”.
