We Are Not Taken in By Your Lies

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski at the OSCE meeting on December 5:

Elina has just reminded us of the origin of this organization. The Helsinki process was basically a grand bargain between the then communist bloc, which sought the confirmation of borders in Europe, and the then west, which wanted respect for human rights in the Soviet bloc. Today Russia respects neither borders nor human rights. There are no free media in Russia, there are no honest elections, and there are more political prisoners than in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev at the time of Helsinki. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we encouraged Russia to become a normal democratic nation state. But they failed. It proved too difficult to emerge from their own political culture. Russia's rulers chose the path of aggressive, repressive kleptocracy.  

My message to the Russian delegation is the following: We are not taken in by your lies. We know what you're doing. You're trying to rebuild the Russian empire and we will not let you. We will resist you every inch of the way. And the Russian war criminal at this table must know: Ukraine will win this war and justice will prevail.