As delivered (transcribed)

Thank you, chair, and thank you, Mr. President, for convening us.

I will be short. I think this is an opportunity again to recall that history has to be remembered.

Russia's war against Ukraine did not start in 2022. Sometimes it is referred to February that year. Of course, a massive invasion, but it started back in 2014. And my focus in this short intervention is – I was very moved by the (intervention by the) young lady who was born in in Crimea – and the human rights dimension of this. Among those who were deported, the Crimean Tatars, she had grandparents who had been deported from Crimea in 1944. So, they lost – in a way – their homeland a second time. That's quite extraordinary on the scene of Europe.

I think the purpose of these meetings – which we now have had a few times – is to not allow the illegal occupation to be normalized. That is the key. The passage of time cannot render an unlawful occupation lawful. Crimea is part of Ukraine.

The Charter of the United Nations is a solid document. It's being challenged regularly. And again – focusing on the human rights dimension of the hundreds of people in Crimea – they are subject to political prosecution. Many of them are Crimean Tatars. The UN monitors have documented enforced disappearances, cases of torture and efforts to suppress dissenting voices, fabricated terrorism charges, long sentences and prisoners who are transferred far away from their families, which is another violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Since we are in the hall of the UN, I think we really have to underline that the human rights monitoring mechanisms and the independent investigations must not sleep. They have to be there. They have to document and they have to keep this memory alive.

So, I think, friends, the risk today is not that the world condemns the occupation too little. We do. It is that the world grows used to it. That is what we have to work against and that is why this platform is so important, and you know, Mr. President, that we stand by Ukraine. We stand by this struggle in all ways.

This war has to end. Russia must end its aggression and withdraw from the entire territory of Ukraine including Crimea. There's no room for ambiguity on this, no room for normalization.