On February 24, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, spoke about Ukraine's diplomatic victory over Russia on Facebook.

According to Goncharenko, Ukraine was supported by representatives of core countries and blocs - the United States, the EU, Canada, the Baltic States, and others. And only two key countries - Venezuela and Syria - supported Russia.

"The debate showed that Ukraine supports the democratic world, that the issues of Crimea and Donbas are still relevant. And our proactive actions have yielded results - new sanctions against Russia and Lukashenko's regime confirm that", - he said.

He noted that the head of the Russian delegation Vitaly Churkin did not come for the debate, sending his deputy Dmitry Polyansky to speak, who began to tell tales about the "civil war in Donbas" and "Russian Crimea".

The fairy-tale of Russian aggression in Ukraine allows Kyiv and its Western partners to avoid discussing the issue of those responsible for the civil conflict in the country. - he declared, accusing the Ukrainian state of exploitation of "victims of so-called Russian aggression", the Russian news agency TASS reported.

According to the Voice of America, in addition to verbal provocative statements about Ukraine, Polyansky addressed German diplomat Christoph Heusgen, who in his speech called on the Kremlin to allow monitoring missions to the occupied peninsula to assess the human rights situation.

Polyansky replied that "Russia lets everyone go to Crimea, and Heusgen probably can't go because he is completely lost" so the first deputy ambassador of the Russian Federation offered him to buy a ticket to Crimea.

Meanwhile, the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Serhiy Kyslytsya assured that the General Assembly do not and will not accept the Russian mantra that the Crimean issue is closed.

Acting head of the US permanent mission to the UN, Ambassador Richard Mills, said that Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine had killed more than 13,000 people, displaced millions of Ukrainians, and 3.4 million people now needed humanitarian assistance.

"And we are here today because Russia has tried to block any significant progress in diplomatic negotiations while arming, training, financing and managing its forces and supporting the self-proclaimed 'authorities' on the ground", - he said.

Mills also added that the United States will never recognize Russia's occupation of Crimea. And sanctions due to Russian aggression in the occupied territories of Ukraine will remain in force until Russia changes course.

What is known

• At the UN General Assembly, Turkey supports the desire of Crimean Tatars to live freely on their land.