Deaths, disasters, sexual violence, enforced disappearances… Many members of the UN Security Council focused on the suffering of the citizens of Ukraine throughout the year, and the Secretary General of the Organization summarized them in one sentence: “Their lives are a real hell.”

Russian invasion of Ukraine caused “death, destruction and displacement on a grand scale,” said Antonio Guterres in the Security Council, which observed a moment of silence on the occasion of the anniversary.

“Life for the Ukrainian people is a real hell,” commented the Secretary General.

About 17.6 million people, i.e. 40% of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, and 40% of the population do not have enough food. “The war has provoked an unprecedented migration crisis in Europe,” with eight million refugees in different countries and another five million displaced inside Ukraine. More than half of the children in Ukraine have been forced to leave their homes, and some of the children separated from their families are at risk of abuse or exploitation.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights also documented “dozens of cases of sexual violence against men, women and girls” and let’s not forget “hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of civilians”.

The infrastructure is being tested: in the middle of winter, water supply, energy supply and heating systems were destroyed, António Guterres recalled.

“A year of inhuman suffering for the Ukrainian people, whose resilience and courage are admirable,” commented French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonnade. “A year of blackmail, executions, bombings, torture, rape, kidnapping and displacement of children.”

“At least 6,000 children have been abducted and taken to Russia,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said. “With these Russian atrocities, it is easy to be dumbfounded, to lose the ability to be shocked. But we cannot allow the crimes committed by Russia to become the new normal,” he added, expressing the hope that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

“Ukraine is not a victim,” said Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya. “We cannot put up with a Russophile sponge nest at our borders,” he added. Earlier, when Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, concluding his speech, stood up and called for a minute of silence “in memory of the victims” of Russian aggression, Nebenzya also stood up and said that “all the victims of what has been happening in Ukraine since 2014.”