There are "no facts on the ground" to support an "invasion fantasy" concerning the situation on the Russia-Ukraine border, an Oireachtas committee was told on Monday.
In a wide-ranging appearance at the Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs and defence, Yuriy Filatov, Russia's ambassador to Ireland, sought to play down concerns about Russia's military build up on Ukraine's borders, and planned exercises off the Irish coast which were relocated last week.
However, he told the committee that Russia's security was being impacted by Ukraine's engagement with the West, and that the "security situation on the Western borders of Russia is unacceptable and has to be dealt with".
Mr Filatov blamed Western governments for distorting the truth, which he said had led to a "hysteria" and was part of a "deliberate attempt to heat up the situation". He calimed Russia has "not done anything in terms of escalation," arguing that all the troops in the region were in the areas they are usually based in.
He downplayed naval exercises off the Irish coast as “not a big deal”, and said there was no wider geopolitical or military significance - “no message here for Ireland or elsewhere”. He said there were only two ships planned to take part in the exercise, and ridiculed the suggestion that the location of transatlantic communications cables played a role in choosing the site for the drills as a “James Bond-like strategy”. He also raised the possibility that a planned expansion of the Russian embassy in Dublin, which was cancelled amid concerns about the intent of the expansion and whether it was linked to intelligence activities, could be resumed. “We are in dialogue still (with Irish authorities), trying to resolve, trying to maybe find a compromise”. He said the expansion was a modernisation of kitchen, housing and storage facilities. He also denied there were Russian spy ships operating off Ireland, to his knowledge, adding: “Maybe they are so spy that nobody knows”.
The most pressing issue facing Russia and Europe is the "threat to Russian national security", resulting from "the eastwards expansion of Nato", he said.
He outlined that Russia proposed legally binding agreements on security guarantees in December, including the non-expansion of Nato, the non-deployment of offensive weapons near Russian borders and other matters.
He also dismissed concerns over his meeting with the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lt Gen Sean Clancy, which he said was “absolutely normal diplomatic practice”.
‘Containing Russia’
However, Nato has “officially proclaimed Russia as the main threat,” he told the committee, and implemented “a doctrine aimed at containing Russia”.
Accusing the US of undermining European security by withdrawing from several treaties, he said that Nato is “tasked with achieving military superiority in all spheres (sea, land, air, cyberspace, space) and in all theatres”, while intensifying combat training activities in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s borders involving strategic bombers and naval missile systems.
“Nato’s greater capability of deployment of strike weapons at our borders, as well as the expansion of Nato’s military infrastructure further to the East increases the risk of an armed conflict,” the committee was told.
Referring to the charter for European security, signed in Istanbul in 1999, he said a State is “free to choose or change the way in which it ensures its security” - but to do so in a manner that doesn’t strengthen its own security at the expense of the security of others.
“Western countries continue to pick and choose from this package only the provisions they want, to be exact - the right of a State to be free to choose alliances to ensure exclusively its own security.”
He said the West selectively interprets part of these agreements, omitting clauses that military alliances should be withdrawn “from the original function of deterrence”.
“The principle of indivisibility of security is selectively interpreted to justify the irresponsible policy of Nato expansion,” he said.
Taking aim at the EU, the US and the EU, Mr Filatov told the committee that “decidedly anti-Russian actions” by all three have “reached a level of absurdity” with a “daily drumbeat” about an imminent invasion by Russia and a readiness by the West to respond to that invasion with “massive and destructive sanctions against Russia”.
“Any unbiased and serious observer would note that not only there are no facts on the ground to support such invasion fantasy, not only has Russia stated repeatedly that it does not have any intention to attack Ukraine or anybody else, but there are no even hypothetically any political, economic, military reasons for such invasion”.
He blamed Washington, Brussels and European capitals for engaging in a "rather dangerous game of shadowboxing" for the sake of "certain political agenda".
He told the committee that the EU, “of which Ireland is a member state, has played a far from constructive role in Ukrainian affairs over recent years”, including supporting and provoking a “bloody constitutional coup in Kiev” in 2014 against a government he claimed was “by the way, not even close to being pro-Russian”.
Western powers, he said, are responsible for the ascension to power of “radical nationalist forces” in Ukraine, who in turn began a civil war with people who “didn’t want to follow Kiev’s orders to ban the use of the Russian language”.
He said that the most important thing the EU and the US could do to achieve peace "is literally to force the Kiev government into implementing the Minsk agreements", which are "the only viable way to resolve the internal Ukrainian conflict".
With Russia this month serving as chair of the UN security council, a meeting has been scheduled on the implementation of these agreements and the permanent representative of Ukraine invited to attend.
“We would hope that all reasonable, dialogue-oriented countries - including Ireland - will support the pursuit of peace and stability in Europe,” he said.
