“Ukraine is a sovereign state and will protect our national interest and, although the Ukrainian delegation does not wish to disrupt the adoption of the item 1.2 of the WHA70’s [the 70th World Health Assembly’s] agenda, condescending to Ukraine will no longer be tolerated. We must make our position crystal clear. This assembly has become part of the front line of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine. The Russian Federation is waging an undeclared war against Ukraine that has resulted in some 10,000 people killed, more than 23,000 injured and millions displaced.
“The candidacy of the Russian Federation to the post of the president of the WHA70 is the latest salvo in a concerted attack against Western institutions that have kept the peace for over 70 years and subsequently prolonged life expectancy and improved the quality of life worldwide. The policies of the Russian occupation administration in Crimea to deny vitally important substitution maintenance therapy to hundreds of patients has already caused dozens of deaths. Almost daily, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars live through human rights violations including the illegal detainment and exile to Russian ‘work camps’ on trumped up charges, like Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and many others.
“The Russian occupation army, and their proxies in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, is destroying the fragile medical infrastructure in the southeast of Ukraine because of daily mortar attacks and shelling with weapons supposedly banned by the Minsk agreement. Vulnerable people on the ground lack access to medical services and vital medicines. This week, the Ukrainian Parliament is voting for laws that will guarantee health care for veterans protecting our country from this Russian invasion. We are building a new health care system in Ukraine.
“The representative of the Russian Federation, whose country is waging a war against Ukraine, does not have any moral authority to chair the assembly of an organization that aims to protect lives and implement standards embodied by the Hippocratic Oath. The delegation of Ukraine requests that our position be duly incorporated into the records of the assembly.”
– Ukraine’s Acting Minister of Health Ulana Suprun speaking during the World Health Organization’s 70th World Health Assembly, being held May 22-31 in Geneva, to protest against the naming of Russia’s Minister of Health, Veronika Skvortsova as president of the 70th WHA.