MARCH 18 — We find ourselves in 2024 facing a growing number of tragic conflicts around the world, as we are seeing in the Middle East and beyond.
Last month, we also saw the two-year anniversary of Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But the illegal invasion on 24 February wasn’t the start of the story. That began 10 years ago.
On 18 March 2014, Russia illegally “annexed” the Crimean Peninsula, Russian troops having seized the Crimean Parliament, installed a puppet government, and held a fraudulent referendum.
Over the next eight years, the United Nations repeatedly noted the human rights violations of the Russian Federation in Crimea.
In particular, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that Russia was targeting the indigenous Muslim population, the Crimean Tatars.
These included arbitrary arrests; detentions; ill-treatment; torture; conscription of Ukrainian citizens; and denial of religious freedoms.
Russia has also backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, supplying them with arms, armour, and command structures.
It is from this separatist controlled territory that Russian military equipment taken from Russia and operated by Russian personnel shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17 2014.
In February 2022, Putin launched what he called a ‘special military operation’, attempting to invade and occupy the rest of Ukraine.
When areas of Ukraine have been liberated from Russian control, such as Bucha, Lyman, and Kherson, mass graves of civilians were found.
The evidence was clear that many had been executed, with some victims showing signs of torture. Other civilians, including children, were abducted, and forcibly displaced to Belarus or Russia.
Russia’s war in Ukraine is an unprovoked and premeditated attack against a sovereign democratic state.
If Putin succeeds in seizing territory from another sovereign UN state, it undermines the international rules-based system in which we all have a stake.
Putin is not winning. Two years into a war that he mistakenly thought would take days. The longer it goes on, the more the people of Ukraine suffer, and the more Russian soldiers will die or be wounded. The war could end today if he withdrew.
We believe now is the time to increase our support so Ukraine not only wins the war, but emerges from it as a strong, sovereign, and free country.
The UK has pledged almost £12 billion in overall support to Ukraine since February 2022, of which £7.1 billion is for military assistance.
We have also trained nearly 60,000 Ukrainian servicemen since the illegal annexation of Crimea, with the aim of training a further 10,000 by mid-2024.
Last year, Ukraine and the UK co-hosted the Ukraine Recovery Conference, which strengthened international support for Ukraine to meet recovery and reconstruction needs.
This year, Switzerland will host a global summit on the Ukraine Peace Formula, and Swiss President Viola Amherd has stated she wants strong representation from the global South.
Malaysia’s experience in peace negotiations would be very welcome as part of these important discussions.
We welcomed Prime Minister Anwar’s unequivocal condemnation of the Russian invasion at the UN General Assembly last year, and his commitment to the UN Charter and international law last week in Australia. We share this commitment.
We will continue to call out violations of the UN charter and international law, wherever they occur, along with fellow members of the international community.
This includes Gaza, where we have called on Israel to act unequivocally in line with international humanitarian law and to uphold its responsibilities as an occupying power.
We have also called on Israel to halt settlement expansion immediately, and hold to account those responsible for extremist settler violence.
The UK has imposed sanctions on extremist Israelis who have violently attacked Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, because continued settler violence threatens West Bank stability.
And as with other conflicts around the world, we will continue to lead the way in providing humanitarian aid where it is needed. In total the UK has allocated £87m in humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza and we will continue to do more.
We are calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life.
*H.E. Ailsa Terry is British High Commissioner and
Denys Mikhailiuk, Charge d'Affaires, Ukrainian Embassy
**This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
