Ukraine`s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Volodymyr Yelchenko during a UN Security Council open debate on water, peace and security urged not to use the drinking water shortage problem in occupied Crimea with the aim of propaganda.
Yelchenko said that Russia and the situation in occupied Crimea were not on the debate`s agenda, but once the Russian representative in his speech recalled the peninsula, the Ukrainian side had to express its position.
The territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea remains under Russian occupation, Yelchenko stressed. According to international law, an occupying power is exclusively responsible for the consequences of its illegal activities, according to the Ukrainian diplomat.
Yelcehnko believes that the preliminary statement of the Russian delegation was a testament to the failure of the Russian occupying power to solve the main problems of the local population.
”Instead of openly admitting illegal actions and trying to fix violations, the Russian side preferred to use water supply problems in Crimea as a propaganda tool,” Yelchenko said.
”If the Russian Federation is genuinely concerned about the issues they have raised, they can start with the termination of reorientation of insufficient water resources in Crimea to meet the needs of the growing military infrastructure and military personnel on the peninsula,” the diplomat said.
”The next logical step would be to start the process of de-occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, thus contributing to a positive solution to the problem of availability of water resources in Crimea,” Yelchenko said.
