Statement of the EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform on the current situation in Ukraine

In 2017, Ukraine and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States signed an Association Agreement, which confirmed close historical ties between the Parties, commitment to common values, and strong public support for Ukraine's European choice.

Currently, Ukraine is in a situation where people are again forced to confirm their European choice and resist the potential escalation of a large-scale conflict on the European continent.

The EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform conducts public monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the Association Agreement and Ukraine's other European integration commitments in the context of the implementation of Ukraine's constitutional choice for EU integration.

Given the numerous reports from Ukraine's international partners on the reality of potential threats, the EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform calls on the civil society organisations in Ukraine, the European Union and the Eastern Partnership countries, and on the European and Ukrainian institutions to:

1. take measures to immediately de-escalate the situation around Ukraine and return Russian military groups to their permanent locations in Russia;

2. stop the armed conflict in the East of Ukraine, which has led to tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens losing their lives, millions of residents being deprived of homes and livelihoods in the East of Ukraine and to the destruction of the Ukrainian economy;

3. draw attention to the fact that the escalation of the military conflict will lead to increased military spending, resulting in a catastrophic reduction in spending on solving the global jobs issue, improving social protection for workers and the population, combating climate change, ensuring a just transition to a green economy, and recovering from economic, social and health-related consequences of the pandemic

4. fully support the constitutional right of Ukrainians to self-determination, confirmed by numerous democratic acts expressing the will of the Ukrainian people and in respect of international law;

5. to urge the UN to develop a Programme of Action for Struggle against Threats to Cybersecurity, to strengthen global capabilities, to prevent, detect and respond to malicious cyber activity and to maintain a global, open, stable and secure cyberspace;

6. take active steps against disinformation: to move urgently to form universal legal norms in this area, to introduce tough sanctions for violations, to monitor disinformation campaigns, to develop mechanisms to combat the dissemination of disinformation, including through the involvement of Ukrainian experts in the NATO Cyber Coalition, and to take measures to urgently increase media literacy in society;

7. in case of continued armed pressure, to impose effective economic and political sanctions against politicians, military officials and related businesses of the aggressor country and its potential allies, which are behind the escalation of tensions in the European space;

8. promote the improvement of the investment climate in Ukraine to support the competitiveness of the Ukrainian economy and to find additional opportunities to strengthen anti-crisis international economic assistance measures to Ukraine;

9. promote the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity within the internationally recognised borders guaranteed by the Charter of the United Nations, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1990 Paris Charter, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and the UN General Assembly Resolution on the Territorial Integrity of Ukraine No 68/262, 2014.