Ukraine: Open Briefing
Tomorrow afternoon (20 November), the Security Council will hold an open briefing on Ukraine. Council members Denmark, France, Greece, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Slovenia, and the UK requested the meeting, citing rising numbers of civilian casualties in Ukraine, ongoing attacks on energy infrastructure in the country, and the need for a ceasefire. The anticipated briefers are Kayoko Gotoh, the Officer-in-Charge of the Europe, Central Asia and Americas Division at the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), and Edem Wosornu, the Director of the Operations and Advocacy Division at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Ukraine and several regional countries, including Poland and Sweden, are expected to participate under rule 37 of the Council’s rules of procedure, while the European Union (EU) will take part under rule 39.
Tomorrow’s briefing will be the first Council meeting on Ukraine in almost two months. The last meeting was held on 23 September, during the high-level segment of the 80th session of the General Assembly. It appears that Ukraine had indicated to some Council members that it did not wish to hold meetings on the file in October, during Russia’s Council presidency. Since the September meeting, attacks continued to adversely affect civilians and civilian infrastructure, while little progress was made on the diplomatic front to resolve the conflict.
The briefers and several Council members, particularly those who requested the meeting, are expected to voice alarm about Russia’s ongoing aerial campaign targeting Ukrainian cities, including several deadly assaults in the past two months. According to the most recent protection of civilians report by the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), which was issued on 12 November, civilian casualties in October remained high, with at least 148 killed and 929 injured, representing similar numbers to those of September and August. The report notes that 65 percent of casualties occurred near the front line—with particularly high numbers reported in the Kherson, Kharkiv, and Donetsk regions—while urban centres far from the front line were targeted by long-range missiles and drones launched by Russia, accounting for 35 percent of all civilian casualties.
Some speakers may emphasise the deleterious effects of the conflict on children, noting in particular that tomorrow is World Children’s Day, marking the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November 1989. According to the HRMMU report, at least 745 children have been killed and 2,375 injured since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Speakers may also reference in this regard a 22 October attack using loitering munitions which caused significant damage to a kindergarten in Kharkiv City. One man was killed and ten others were injured, while the 50 children present in the kindergarten were unharmed. On 29 October, the Children’s Clinical Hospital in the city of Kherson came under artillery fire by the Russian armed forces, resulting in the injury of nine civilians, including four children and three medical workers, according to the HRMMU.
More recently, on 14 November, a Russian drone and missile attack killed six people in the capital, Kyiv, while strikes on the southern Black Sea port city of Chornomorsk killed two people. According to Ukrainian authorities, the attack involved 430 drones and 18 missiles—marking one of the biggest attacks on the capital since the start of the war—and struck energy facilities and apartment buildings, and also damaged the embassy of Azerbaijan in Kyiv. Overnight between 18 and 19 November, Russia reportedly launched a large-scale drone and missile barrage on the western city of Ternopil, which is located 200 kilometres from the Polish border. Ukrainian authorities reported that 470 drones and 48 missiles were used in the attack, which hit two multi-storey residential buildings, killing at least 25 people, including three children, and injuring more than 70 others.
Russia said that both these assaults targeted energy facilities and military targets, including weapons-production complexes, in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. Ukraine has been increasingly carrying out such long-range assaults in recent months, targeting oil depots and Russia’s power grid, among other targets. For instance, on 14 November, Russian authorities reported a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian port city of Novorossiysk, which damaged an oil depot, a cargo container terminal, and coastal facilities.
On 18 November, the Ukrainian military said that it had attacked military targets in Russia using US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles. This was the first time Ukraine publicly stated that it had used ATACMS missiles, over a year after the US lifted the restriction on their use in Russian territory under the administration of former president Joe Biden. Russia’s defence ministry said that it shot down the ATACMS missiles, which targeted the southern Russian city of Voronezh, and that the attack did not result in civilian casualties, although it damaged a private home, an orphanage, and other structures. Ukraine has said that it will continue using long-range strike capabilities, including ATACMS. At tomorrow’s meeting, Russia is likely to raise such attacks on its territory and accuse Western countries of prolonging the war by supplying Ukraine with weapons.
The briefers and several Council members are expected to express concern about the humanitarian impacts of the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as the winter approaches. According to the HRMMU’s 12 November report, three such attacks in October led to emergency power outages across most regions of Ukraine. In a statement, HRMMU Head Danielle Bell warned that “prolonged disruptions to heating, electricity or water supplies would create extreme hardships, particularly for older persons, persons with disabilities, families with young children, and women who often bear the primary responsibility for caregiving and ensuring access to essential needs for their families”.
Gotoh may echo the statements issued by Secretary-General António Guterres condemning the 14 November attack and 18-19 November overnight assault. In these statements, Guterres reiterated that attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure violate international humanitarian law, adding that “[t]hey are unacceptable, wherever they occur, and they must end immediately”. The Secretary-General further called for a “full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire…as a first step towards a just, comprehensive, and sustainable peace that fully upholds Ukraine’s sovereignty, its independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders”.
Some members might also raise the need to ensure the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and highlight the war’s destructive effects on global food supplies. In this regard, there may be mention of the 17 November drone attack that struck a Türkiye-flagged oil tanker when it was offloading liquefied petroleum gas in the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa. There was no responsibility attributed to the attack. Poland and other speakers might also raise the 17 November blast that damaged a Polish railway that is used for delivering aid to Ukraine from other NATO countries. Poland has accused two Ukrainian nationals of working with Russia to sabotage the train tracks, while Russia denied any involvement in the incident.
At tomorrow’s meeting, Council members are likely to present diverging positions on the necessary steps towards a negotiated end to the war. The European members are likely to insist that a ceasefire must precede substantive peace talks. Russia, on the other hand, has called for pursuing a comprehensive peace deal—which would address difficult issues such as the fate of territories taken by Russia in Ukraine—before a ceasefire is agreed. The US, which has led a push in the past year for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, has often shifted its position regarding the sequencing and terms of a ceasefire between the sides.
It seems that European member states had been recently hopeful that there might be increasing momentum in support of a call for a ceasefire. In particular, a 12 November statement by the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7)—which includes the US—reiterated that an “immediate ceasefire is urgently needed”, while emphasising that “international borders must not be changed by force”. In a 29 October statement, the Group of Friends for Peace on the Ukraine Crisis (an initiative by Brazil, China, and other Global South countries), reiterated their call for “an immediate and complete ceasefire”, while reaffirming that “only a negotiated political solution, including through inclusive diplomacy and political means based on the UN Charter, can bring this conflict to an end”.
On 18 November, the media outlet Axios reported that the US has been “secretly” working on a new plan to end the war. The plan reportedly includes provisions that would see Ukraine ceding to Russia territory in eastern Ukraine—including territory that Russia currently holds as well as additional territory that it does not control—in exchange for US security guarantees for Ukraine and Europe against future Russian aggression. Such a move would be viewed as a major concession by Ukraine and its European allies.
