The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Baiba Braze, has accused this Monday before the UN Security Council of Russia of carrying out "atrocities" that fit the definition of genocide in the context of its military offensive against Ukraine.
"These atrocities are constitutive of acts that define genocide and are clearly specified in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention," Braze stressed during her address to the main security body of the United Nations.
The head of Latvian diplomacy has specifically referred to "widespread sexual violence", with rapes of women and documented cases of victims aged 82 and four years, in addition to "gang rapes".
"Russia is creating the conditions to bring about the physical destruction of Ukrainians," she insisted. At this point, she referred to the "fifth winter of war", as well as to attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and on buildings of a civilian nature.
Braze has placed the focus in particular on the situation of the 1.6 million minors who continue to be in areas of Ukraine under Russian control and on its "militarization". "Children as young as 14 years are being prepared to fight against their own country," she denounced.
She has also criticized the "forcible displacement of Ukrainian children", with up to 20,651 minors moved to Russia or to areas occupied by Russian forces, something which, she has stressed, "constitutes a war crime" whose "direct responsibility" she attributes to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and to its Commissioner for the Rights of the Child.