UNP EaP CSF Steering Committee Statement to the members of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum
11th April 2022
After eight years of the hybrid war launched by RF against Ukraine in 2014, on February 24, 2022, our country was subjected to an open large-scale armed invasion by RF. The achievements of modern civilization allow everyone to be a spectator of war atrocities committed by RF in real time. But this is not a Hollywood movie. The unjustified and bloody war brought Ukraine an unprecedented number of deaths, suffering and destruction. About 4 million people fled the country so far, 10 million fled their homes. Many cities were almost completely destroyed – Mariupol, Kharkiv, Volnovakha, Chernihiv, Irpin, Bucha, Vorzel, Makariv and others. There is no safe place in the country anymore – missile strikes are gradually day by day destroying the whole country.
There are strong indications that serious violations of international humanitarian law and gross violations of international human rights law have occurred following the Russian Federation’s armed attack on Ukraine on 24 February, says a new update issued by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
Even the confirmed statistics, which cannot be complete in wartime, are striking. To 5 April 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 3,776 civilian casualties in the country: 1,563 killed and 2,213 injured. OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, as of April 11, almost 525 children have been affected since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. Of these, 183 were killed and more than 342 were injured.
The brutality of the Russians knows no bounds. The world has recently been shaken by horrific footage from Bucha, Irpin and other towns near Kyiv. Such abuse and genocide of the Ukrainian people continues in other regions, where the footsteps of Russian soldiers. Putin does not stop his soldiers, who are increasing war crimes every day and every hour in the until recently peaceful Ukraine.
That is why we ask you to help Ukraine in this crucial period of time for our country.
We thank the Forum’s National Platforms for their support and condemnation of the Russian war against Ukraine, and call on all National Platforms and individual Forum members to help end this unjustified and bloody Russian aggression.
We urge:
– to spread reliable information about Russian military aggression in Ukraine, to cover Russian war crimes in Ukraine, to fight Russian fakes about this war in your countries, which is one of the key tools of Putin’s Russia war;
– to assist international organizations in documenting Russian war crimes in accordance with international standards, as well as the consequences of Russian military action for the environment;
– to appeal to the governments of your countries and the international community to condemn the actions of Russia and its isolation;
– to help refugees from Ukraine who have been forced to leave their homeland, as well as to help Ukrainian civil society organizations;
– to assist law enforcement agencies in their countries to prevent sexual and gender-based violence against refugees from Ukraine.
We are aware that the future of the entire Eastern Partnership region depends on the outcome of this war. In our opinion, not only Ukraine but also all other countries in the region are interested in ending the imperial ambitions of modern Russia. The participation of civil society organizations can make an important contribution to achieving peace and stability in the region.
Members of the Steering Committee of the Ukrainian National Platform Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum
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