UN General Assembly | Zelensky accuses Putin of planning attacks on nuclear power plants

(United Nations) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday accused Russia before the UN of wanting to strike Ukrainian nuclear power plants to cause a “catastrophe” and received a new promise of “unwavering” support from his Western allies.

While the international community is focused on the Middle East, the Ukrainian president has been in the United States and the United Nations since Sunday to urge world leaders to support him in his war against Moscow until a hypothetical peace, which Kyiv nevertheless refuses to see “imposed” on it.

Before the high mass of the United Nations General Assembly, dressed in his usual military uniform and with a serious air, the head of state transformed into a warlord revealed “alarming information from (his) intelligence services” according to which President “Putin now seems to be planning attacks on our nuclear installations and their infrastructure.”

Russia has destroyed “80 percent of Ukraine’s energy system” in two and a half years of conflict, Zelensky said, while Russian armed forces are bombing its power and water plants daily.

“Nuclear catastrophe”

“Any critical incident in the energy system could lead to a nuclear catastrophe. A day that must never come,” he warned. “Moscow must understand this and this partly depends on your determination to put pressure on the aggressor.”

President Zelensky is aware that Western support is in danger of running out of steam.

Particularly in the midst of a tense presidential campaign in the United States which could see Republican Donald Trump emerge victorious on November 5 against Democrat Kamala Harris.

The Biden administration has been leading a broad international coalition of military and financial support for Ukraine for more than two years, and announced on Wednesday that it was releasing $375 million in additional aid to its benefit.

But former President Trump is much more critical of US support for Kyiv.

After his solemn speech at the UN, Mr. Zelensky was received in New York by Joe Biden and the other leaders of the G7 member states who “reaffirmed (their) unwavering support for Ukraine today and in the future, in war and in peace,” according to a press release.

The 81-year-old Democratic president confirmed that he would announce in Washington on Thursday a “battery of measures designed to accelerate support for the Ukrainian armed forces.”

“Victory Plan”

That is where Mr Zelensky will present to Mr Biden and Congress the details of his “victory plan” to end the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022. Few details have been released, but for the Ukrainian president, it is about Kyiv being able to negotiate from a position of strength.

During a bilateral meeting in New York on Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron “underlined France’s support for the peace plan” of his Ukrainian counterpart, according to the Élysée.

At the General Assembly podium, the French head of state praised Ukraine’s “remarkable resistance” and promised that Paris would do everything to ensure it “holds firm”. France will continue “to provide it with equipment essential to its defense”, Mr. Macron assured.

At the same podium on Tuesday, Joe Biden pointed out what he considered to be Russia’s military failure in Ukraine and urged the United Nations to maintain its support for Kyiv until the final victory.

At a time when Kyiv is trying to convince the West to let it use long-range missiles against Russian territory, President Putin has announced a proposal to change Moscow’s doctrine of using nuclear weapons.

This would be a response to “the aggression of Russia by a non-nuclear country, but with the participation or support of a nuclear country,” the Russian president said during a televised meeting of his Security Council.

In this diplomatic standoff, Mr Zelensky warned that Ukrainians would “never” accept a possible peace agreement with Moscow that is “imposed” on them by the major powers. “There can be no just peace without Ukraine,” he said.

On Tuesday, before the Security Council, he urged that Moscow be “forced” to make peace, provoking a scathing response from the Kremlin: it is “impossible to force Russia to peace”, according to its spokesman Dmitri Peskov.

More than 100 heads of state and government are meeting at this “high-level week” at the UN, at a time when conflicts are raging across the planet. At the request of Paris, the Security Council must urgently consider the Middle East and Lebanon on Wednesday evening, a country “on the brink of the abyss”, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.