UNITED NATIONS, May 21. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces use military potential of almost every NATO country to attack Russian civilians and civilians infrastructure, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said, speaking during an open Security Council debate, dedicated to protection of civilians amid an armed conflict.
"The military potential of almost all NATO countries is being used to deliberately strike not military facilities, but densely populated areas and to exterminate the civilian population of Russia," he said, providing repeated Ukrainian strikes at civilian targets in Belgorod, Donetsk, Gorlovka and the Bryansk Region as an example.
"The West does not shy away from shipping depleted uranium munitions, landmines that are un-defusable and un-extractable. There are numerous examples of US-made HIMARS systems and UK-made Storm Shadow missiles being used at civilian targets," the diplomat noted.
He called the information about the conflict in Ukraine, contained in UN Secretary General’s report on protection of civilians in armed conflict a "regrettable example of double standards."
"Unlike the description of the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Secretary General forgets to point out that the special military operation was initiated in response to years-long shellings and bombings of Donbass. We are offered to forget about thousands of killed civilians, which included over one hundred children by the beginning of 2022. Second, an impression is being made that there are no daily strikes at civilians and civilian targets in Donbass, in Lugansk, in Belgorod and in other regions of Russia, carried out via Western-made weapons," Nebenzya underscored.