Ukrainian climate activists and supporters stormed the only Russian event at COP27 last night, calling the delegation “war criminals''.
UN guards escorted a number of people, including Ukranians, from the 6.30pm event in Thebes sideroom at the world climate summit in Egypt.
Large numbers queued for the climate adaptation and mitigation event led by Sergei Anoprienko, deputy Russian minister of natural resources and the environment, having their bags checked before entry.
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A woman wearing a T-shirt that read ‘stop fossil fuel use - act now’ was the first to stand in protest minutes after it began.
She shouted “you are war criminals, you must sit in the court [not] international climate talks” as she was escorted out of the room by three guards.
Young Ukrainian, Viktoriya Ball, was next to speak out.
She yelled: “You are war criminals, you are killing my people. You are shooting bombs at our people and this is not climate mitigation.
“Your climate commitments mean nothing.”
A woman wearing a face mask then shouted “you deserve no respect, you are war criminals” before another young woman walked past the Russian panel of seven, pointing at them saying “you are a war criminal, you are a war criminal, you are a war criminal”.
She too was escorted out, followed by other walk-out protestors.
The speaker continued, apparently unfazed, saying they were there to talk about climate.
He was again interrupted when a man stood to say “this is absolutely not proper... these are war criminals, Russia are war criminals, every single one”.
“All of you are war criminals,” he shouted as he was walked from the room.
Viktoriya, 22, told us after the walk-out they took action because Russia is “destroying the environment”.
She told us: “They are talking about their climate mitigation, climate adaptation, commitments, what Russia’s doing for climate, when actually what they are doing is destroying the environment, the climate.
“They are committing war crimes of genocide in my country of Ukraine.
“They are sending rockets which are financed by their fossil fuel industry.
“We staged a walk-out where we accused them of the crimes they are committing.
“They should not be here at this conference talking about climate commitments when they are doing exactly the opposite thing.
“We walked out as a coalition of different movements and civil society from lots of different countries.”
While Viktoriya has lived in the UK since before the war, she said it made refugees of her grandparents.
“They had to move to the UK with us, which is a very difficult journey for them,” she added.
“Now they are doubly displaced as they were first displaced in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster which is another case of Russian negligence and complete disregard for humanity in general.
“Some of my colleagues have lost friends in this war, they are living with constant electricity outages, intermittent access to clean water and we have people who have lived under Russian occupation for eight year that are not allowed to talk about these social issues or environmental issues because this is expressing disagreement with the puppet government in the occupied territories.
“This is a complete disregard for human rights and this should not be the case.
“These representatives who are not speaking out against the terrorist regime should not be present at conference which is talking about making the world better for everyone.
“They tried to ignore it, they tried to play it cool as if they are unaffected by it,” she added.
“But we definitely affected the mood in the audience.”
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