Ukraine as a co-founder of the United Nations knows the reason we established this distinguished organization. For peace and stability. Do we have this peace and stability? No. And our global aim and global target is to do everything we can to protect our citizens and to deliver peace to our nations.

The global agenda today consists of a number of things. Everyone mentioned ISIL, everyone mentioned Ebola, and everyone mentioned Ukraine. Frankly speaking, I would be happy not to be in this role. But we are the country that knows what terrorism means not by words, but in deeds, in practice.

Let me remind you the origin of the conflict that evolves in Ukraine. Is it a domestic conflict? No. That’s true, that my country has differences. But every country has differences. And we are ready to handle and to tackle these differences inside our country. But the thing is that the origin of the conflict is an invasion that was made by Russian Federation.

A P5 member violated the UN Charter, which is absolutely and entirely unacceptable for the permanent UN Security Council member. It’s better for Russia to be an “insecurity” member rather than a security one.

Twenty years ago, Ukraine abandoned nuclear weapon. We possessed the third-biggest arsenal in the world. As we relinquished our nuclear power arsenal in Budapest, Ukraine got guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty. And Russia was a co-signer and co-contributor of this memorandum. Instead of security guarantees in 20 years, we received Russian military boots on Ukrainian soil.

It seems it’s difficult to convince another county to stop nuclear proliferation. We are committed to our nuclear non-proliferation program, but we need to get guarantees of our territorial integrity and security and independence.

A few months ago, the Russian Federation annexed Crimea. One country, which is the UN member and a P5 member, one country which is armed to the teeth, just decided to grab the land of an independent Ukraine. And let me commend the efforts of UN member states that overwhelmingly supported the resolution that supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and condemns an illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

And they moved further. For today, we can state that Russian troops are deployed in the east of Ukraine.

The Russian Federation violated a number of bilateral and multilateral international agreements — starting with the UN Charter and ending with the resolutions on counterterrorism that were passed by the UN.

So we know what terrorism means. And we urge Russia to pull back its forces, to pull back its artillery, to stop to supply Russian-led terrorists, to restore the control over the Ukrainian-Russian border, and to start real talks, peace talks.

We are the country that needs peace. And it’s difficult to hammer out any kind of peace deal at the barrel of a gun made in Russia.

Let me remind you a dramatic disaster that happened due to the Russian invasion. A few months ago, a civilian flight MH-17 was downed by Russian-made surface-to-air missile. And 298 people, innocent civilians, were killed. Ukraine mourns the victims. We pray together with the families of Netherlands, Australia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Germany. Ukraine handed over an investigation to an independent body, which is Dutch-led. And we urge everyone to help us to bring to justice those responsible for these despicable crimes, crimes against humanity.

Every day, despite the ceasefire, we are losing Ukrainian soldiers, we are losing civilians, and the shelling is still going on.

I would reiterate once again that we need peace. What is the formula for this peace? The military option is definitely not the best one. So it is to be a comprehensive approach which comprises diplomatic, financial, political and only at last military options.

The United States and the EU imposed a number of sanctions against Russia. We do understand that sanctions are the way to start real talks and to hammer out a peace deal. No trust in words. We trust only in deeds and actions.

We would once again reiterate our commitment to restore law and order. We urge the Russian Federation to stick to its international obligation to execute everything that was written in Minsk. And this is not a menu where you can pick the cherry. It means that Russia is to execute all 12 points of this memo.

We ask our partners not to lift sanctions until Ukraine takes over control of its entire territory — starting with the east of Ukraine and ending with Crimea. Crimea was, is and will be a part of Ukraine.

Let me end with a direct message to Russian president, “Mr. Putin, you can win a fight against the troops. But you will never win the fight against the nation, a united Ukrainian nation.”

Help us, God.

Thank you.