Ukraine Ambassador to North Macedonia, Natalia Zadorozhnyuk, speaking today about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, said that it would not be an exaggeration to say that today the fate of the international legal order is being decided. In her speech at the panel discussion on “Ukrainian-Russian Crisis and North Macedonia”, she stressed that either we will live in a relatively stable world with clear game rules for every country, without exception, in accordance with basic international rules of law, or the existing system will be completely destroyed. According to her, this issue affects all countries, including North Macedonia, writes Portalb.mk.
“The issues do not refer so much to the relations between Russia and Ukraine, but to all countries, including friendly North Macedonia. Either we are all on the side of the force of law or authoritarian Russia will win with its right to force. In particular, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is always difficult with its neighbors, but civilized countries resolve disputes in a civilized way. I cannot imagine a neighbor of Macedonia in the 21st century coming to you and stealing part of the territory killing 15,000 people. And all this only because of the fact that your country wants to choose its own future,” Zadorozhnyuk said.
She said that together with the allies they had formulated three directions to prevent Russia: diplomatic – political, economic sanctions and military-technical. The political direction is solidarity with Ukraine; the economic direction is the strengthening of political sanctions that make Russia much weaker, while the third is military aid, the provision of defence weapons.
“In that direction, we expect clear and unequivocal political support from friendly North Macedonia. I look forward to joining the EU sanctions (you cannot have double standards; there are times in life when you have to decide for yourself, above all on which side of the barricade you are. Ukrainians have a very convincing negative experience with neutrality). If we go to the EU and NATO, if we are part of European values, then we demonstrate it not only with words, but also with deeds,” – said the Ukrainian ambassador.
Experts in the field also participated in the panel discussion. In his speech, analyst Aleksandar Nikolikj Pisarev expressed concern about the disinformation and propaganda of Russian influence.
