Coveney rejects  Russian claims that the Bucha massacre in Ukraine was staged

Failure to hold Russia accountable will 'send signal to powerful countries that they can prey on neighbours with impunity'

Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney called on the UN Security Council to consider how it acts to protect the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and prevent acts of aggression. 

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has rejected Russian claims that the Bucha massacre in Ukraine was staged.

Mr Coveney clashed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a heated session of the United Nations Security Council.

At the stormy session Mr Coveney spoke of his own experiences seeing the bodies of victims in Bucha, but Mr Lavrov said Bucha was a staged incident, and that nobody except Russia has spoken about it since March.

Addressing a meeting of the UN Security Council on atrocities committed in Ukraine since Russia's 24 February invasion, Mr Lavrov accused Ukraine of creating threats against Russian security and "brazenly trampling" the rights of Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine.

Speaking after the meeting to Irish reporters, Mr Coveney utterly rejected Mr Lavrov’s comments.

“What we heard today was more Russian disinformation. When I visited Kyiv and Bucha, what I saw certainly wasn’t a fabrication,” he said.

“In time we will see the international criminal court making clear determinations. My comments were about holding Russia to account and was about setting the standard that Russia should be held in terms of the international charter which has been breached on multiple levels,” he said.

Mr Coveney said virtually every speaker at the Council other than Russia made it clear that Russian aggression against Ukraine cannot be ignored.

"It cannot be ignored by the Security Council and it was not today," he said.

Mr Coveney also told the United Nations Security Council that sham referendums cannot alter Russia’s “grave violation of international law” in terms of its invasion of Ukraine.

“It is an attempt to change internationally-recognised borders by the use of force. No sham referendum can change that basic fact. It is a grave violation of international law,” he said.

Mr Coveney said if we fail to hold Russia accountable, we send a signal to large, powerful countries that they can prey on their neighbours with impunity.

“It cannot be allowed to stand. This is why Ireland, yesterday, filed a declaration of intervention at the International Court of Justice, in Ukraine’s case against Russia,” he said.

He said just six weeks after signing an international deal to prevent conflict, Russia launched an unwarranted and illegal further invasion of Ukraine; of another sovereign UN member state; of a neighbour.

“And yesterday, president Putin again issued threats to use nuclear weapons," said Mr Coveney.

Let us be absolutely clear. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the antithesis of the principles of the UN Charter.

It is why we are intervening in Ukraine’s case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights. It is why we have supported action at the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, to hold Russia accountable for its actions, he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney at the site of mass graves where more than 50 bodies were found in Bucha, Ukraine. Picture: PA

He said this is why, with 40 other States Parties of the International Criminal Court, Ireland referred the situation in Ukraine to the ICC prosecutor.

“And it is why we will work with Ukraine, and other partners, to examine how we can hold Russia accountable for the crime of aggression,” he said.

He called on the Security Council to consider how it acts to protect the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and prevent acts of aggression. 

No one country, no matter how big or powerful, should have the ability to veto the application of international law, for its own aims.

“Without accountability, there is no hope of a sustainable peace; not in Ukraine, not anywhere,” he said.

A Ukrainian serviceman inspects a mass grave in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine. Picture: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Recalling his own recent visits to Ukraine, Mr Coveney said six months into the conflict more mass graves are being discovered in Izium and in other areas that were, until recently, under Russian occupation.

“Attacks by Russian forces on civilians, and on civilian infrastructure, have further intensified. The devastating impact of explosive weapons in populated areas is ever more evident, with hundreds of thousands of homes, hospitals, and schools destroyed,” he said.

I have seen these things for myself; these are no fabrications for propaganda purposes.

Millions of civilians in Ukraine and beyond are being potentially put at risk by Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power Plant, he said.

Russia must immediately cease all actions against the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukrainian authorities must regain full control, Mr Coveney told the council.

“This is not just about Ukraine. This is about the entirety of the UN membership. If we do not reject Russia’s actions in the clearest and most stark terms, we allow the world to be governed by force, and not through dialogue,” he said.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov began his address at the UN Security Council meeting by saying there has been an attempt to impose an idea of "Russian aggression".

Mr Lavrov accused Ukraine and the West of attempting to impose a “completely different narrative” that sees Moscow as the aggressor.

There will be “no peace without justice”, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has said, expressing confidence in the work of the International Criminal Court.

He accused Ukraine and its Western allies of “impunity” in the eastern Donbas region, claiming Kyiv was denying basic rights to its largely Russian-speaking population.

“People were denied their pensions, their subsidies, access to education and basic civil rights,” Lavrov said.

He argued Ukraine and its allies – Germany, France and the United States – were attempting to “impose on us a completely different narrative about Russian aggression.” Rather than persuade Kyiv to implement the Minsk agreements that ended the Donbas war in 2014, Lavrov said the West “cynically ignored” Ukraine’s repressive actions, including the “ousting” of the Russian language.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on every UN Security Council member to “send a clear message that [Russia’s] reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week that his nuclear-armed country will “certainly use all means available to us” if its territory is threatened.

Blinken also prompted the 15 members to “tell President Putin to stop the horror that he started.” “Tell him to stop putting his interests above the interests of the world, including his own people. Tell him to stop debasing this council and everything it stands for,” he said.

Mr Blinken said Russian President Vladimir Putin must be hold accountable for “shredding” the international order by waging war against Ukraine.

Putin’s announcement of plans to mobilise military reservists earlier this week, as world leaders gathered at the United Nations’ General Assembly, was an indication of Moscow’s “utter contempt for this council,” Blinken said.

“The very international order that we have gathered here to uphold is being shredded before our eyes,” he added. “We cannot – we will not – allow President Putin to get away with it.”