UK Tells OSCE Ukrainian Troops Are Lawful Combatants and Russia Should Accept an Immediate Ceasefire
The UK government published two statements delivered at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on GOV.UK on November 12. Ambassador Holland, the UK's ambassador to the OSCE, speaking the day after Armistice Day, recalled the lessons of past conflicts and said Russia's war against Ukraine violates the principles and institutions established to prevent their recurrence. Colonel Joby Rimmer, the UK Senior Military Advisor, told the same forum that Russia's portrayal of Ukraine's armed forces as terrorists is wrong in law and set out the protections Ukrainian service personnel hold under international humanitarian law. This report is filed as a UK station roundup.
Holland said the United Kingdom had marked Armistice Day the day before, remembering all those who have lost their lives in conflict from the First World War to the present day, and that remembrance carries a responsibility to learn the enduring lessons of the world wars: aggression must not be rewarded, no state's grievances, history or sense of destiny entitle it to dominate its neighbours, and peace cannot be taken for granted. He said Russia's false claim that its invasion seeks the denazification of Ukraine abuses shared history and insults those who sacrificed their lives to defeat Nazism, among them millions of Ukrainians who fought and died.
The foundations of a durable peace already exist, Holland said: the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, the Helsinki Final Act commits every participating State to sovereign equality, the inviolability of frontiers, territorial integrity, non-intervention and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and the Charter of Paris reaffirmed those principles. The OSCE's security framework is built on them, with states agreeing to maintain permanent channels for dialogue, exchange information about their armed forces and military activities, and provide advance notification and observation of certain military exercises. 'The principles did not fail. Russia violated them,' he said, calling on Russia to accept an immediate ceasefire, engage seriously in dialogue and respect the commitments it has already made as the path towards a just and lasting peace.
Rimmer said Ukraine's servicemen and servicewomen are exercising their country's inherent right of self-defence: they are not terrorists and should not be described as such. Russia's full-scale invasion is a manifest violation of the UN Charter, Ukraine has an inherent right of self-defence under Article 51, and international law allows other states to support that defence; relabelling Ukraine's lawful defence of its own territory as terrorism does not alter the legal reality.
On legal status, Rimmer said members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are members of the regular armed forces of a state party to an international armed conflict and, under Article 43 of Additional Protocol I, are combatants with the right to participate directly in hostilities. If captured, Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention entitles them to prisoner-of-war status; they must be treated humanely and may not be persecuted merely for taking part in the conflict, and a terrorism label removes neither that status nor the protections of international humanitarian law.
Rimmer also cited UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission findings: the Mission has regular and unimpeded access to official internment facilities in Ukrainian-controlled territory, while Russia continues to deny independent monitors comparable access to Ukrainian prisoners of war it holds, and of the 853 Ukrainian POWs interviewed by the Mission, more than 96 percent reported torture or ill-treatment in Russian captivity. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, in its March report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/61/61), found that Russian courts and courts in Russian-occupied areas prosecuted Ukrainian civilians and POWs on charges including terrorism in proceedings that denied fundamental fair-trial guarantees and systematically relied on evidence fabricated or obtained through torture or ill-treatment, grave breaches of international humanitarian law amounting to war crimes. Until Russia withdraws its forces from Ukraine's internationally recognised territory, Rimmer said, the UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.
The same day, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office updated its GOV.UK page for the Trade Specialised Committee on Level Playing Field for Open and Fair Competition and Sustainable Development under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, adding the minutes of the committee's fifth meeting, held on 15 October 2025. The committee is a joint UK-EU forum that monitors the implementation and functioning of the agreement's level playing field title.
Source: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于奥地利维也纳的霍夫堡宫，欧安组织常设理事会在此开会。照片：CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Hofburg in Vienna, Austria, where the OSCE Permanent Council meets. Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
