Did the UN Secretary General say that Ukraine does not exist as a state?

There are popular publications on social networks that, according to the former head of the Ban Ki-moon organization, Ukraine at one time “did not apply for border registration” and therefore cannot be considered a state. We have verified the accuracy of such messages.

At the end of February and beginning of March 2022, reports spread on social networks that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said back in 2014: Ukraine “has not applied for border clearance since 1991, so the state of Ukraine does not exist.” Such posts can be found, in particular, in the official group "National Liberation Movement" on VKontakte and several others publics on the same social network. Similar publications are easy to find in Facebook, Twitter and on other platforms.

The text about the “sensational” statement of the former UN Secretary General in February-March 2022 has experienced another wave of popularity, since it appeared eight years ago. This was established by fact checkers from Kazakhstan, Georgia, USA and other countries. Let's look at the main points proposed by the authors of the viral text.

On April 7, 2014, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a shocking statement, the distribution of which is prohibited in the Ukrainian media and on the Internet. The conflict between the two countries was discussed at a meeting of the UN Security Council

Judging by the UN website, which contains transcripts of all Security Council meetings, on that day the Security Council participants haven't met. Ban Ki-moon April 7, 2014 was in Rwanda at events dedicated to the anniversary of the genocide of the Tutsi. We were unable to find any words in Ban Ki-moon’s statements and speeches that the Ukrainian state does not exist due to the lack of an “application” to determine borders.

Ukraine has not registered its borders since December 25, 1991. The UN did not register the borders of Ukraine as a sovereign state. Thus, it can be assumed that Russia is not violating its rights in relation to Ukraine.

Let's start with the fact that on June 26, 1945, the UN Charter, which laid the foundation for the organization, signed representatives of 50 countries - among them was not only the Soviet Union, but also separately the Ukrainian and Belarusian SSRs. In 1991, their successors to the UN steel, respectively, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It is membership in the UN that distinguishes a recognized state from a partially recognized or unrecognized one - for example, Abkhazia, Ossetia, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Kosovo and some other countries do not have UN member status.

The responsibility of the UN in general not included resolving issues regarding the approval of state borders - this problem should be discussed by the neighboring countries themselves. At the same time, on March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly accepted a resolution in which it reaffirmed “its commitment to the sovereignty, political independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders” and called for ignoring the results of the referendum in Crimea and Sevastopol as “not having legal force.”

According to the CIS Agreement, the territory of Ukraine is an administrative unit of the USSR. So no one can be accused of separatism and forcibly changing the borders of Ukraine.

Commonwealth independent there were states proclaimed in December 1991, and the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian USSR stated about independence at the end of August of the same year. The text of the relevant agreement begins with the following words: “We, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation (RSFSR), Ukraine, as the founding states of the USSR, which signed the Union Treaty of 1922, hereinafter referred to as the High Contracting Parties, state that the USSR as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality ceases to exist.” Both from this and from other fragments of the agreement, it is obvious that the contracting parties consider each other precisely as independent states, and also “recognize and respect each other’s territorial integrity and inviolability of existing borders within the framework of the commonwealth."

Under international law, a state simply does not have officially recognized borders. To solve this problem, Ukraine must complete the demarcation of the border with neighboring countries and obtain the consent of neighboring countries, including Russia, to their common border. It is necessary to document everything and sign agreements with all neighboring countries.

The author is right in that Ukraine (like any other state) must coordinate its borders with the countries surrounding it. But these borders have been defined by bilateral agreements for quite some time. Thus, regarding the Russian-Ukrainian border, the agreement signed in January 2003, the presidents of the two countries, Leonid Kuchma and Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian authorities reached similar agreements with other neighbors: in 1991, with Hungary, in 1992 with Poland And Moldova, in 1993 with Slovakia in 1997 with Belarus and in 2003 with Romania.

It is also important to understand the difference between delimitation and demarcation of borders. Delimitation - legal registration of the border, its description and/or depiction on the map; demarcation - marking a border on the ground with the help of special boundary markers on the basis of a delimitation agreement. Problems with border demarcation do not mean the cancellation of the border delimitation treaty.

According to the Budapest Memorandum and other agreements, Ukraine has no borders. The state of Ukraine does not exist (and never existed!)

In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum doesn't say that “Ukraine has no borders” and that this state “does not exist.” The document, signed by the heads of Ukraine, Russia, the United States and Great Britain, is dedicated to guarantees of the country’s security and territorial integrity in exchange for renouncing the possession of nuclear weapons. By the way, in the very first paragraph of the memorandum, Russia, the USA and Great Britain “confirm to Ukraine their obligation <...> to respect the independence, sovereignty and existing borders Ukraine".

The FactCheck.kz portal not only analyzed the main points of the text that became viral, but also traced the story of its origin. According to the investigation of our colleagues, a text signed by a certain Alexander Panin, who works at the Central News Agency of Novorossiya and posted his material in the public domain at the end of May 2014, went viral. Almost two months earlier, a very similar text was published signed by Kharkov social activist Irina Khizhnyak, who referred to the “English channel Thames-TV.” Fact checkers were unable to find such a TV channel operating in 2014. The website thames.tv belongs to the production company Thames, which is far from socio-political topics and produces entertainment shows such as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent for British television and Too Hot To Handle for Netflix.

Thus, Ban Ki-moon never made the speech that allegedly formed the basis of the text popular on social networks. In turn, the theses stated in it do not correspond to reality.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. FactCheck.kz. How did the fake news that the state of Ukraine does not exist arise?
2. Snopes. No, the UN Did Not Say, ‘The State of Ukraine Does Not Exist’
3. MythDetector. Russian Facebook Users Claim Ukraine Does Not Have Internationally Recognized Borders