(United Nations) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directly challenged Russia during an exceptional session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, denouncing Moscow’s “criminal aggression” and the “blocking” of the UN body in because of the Russian veto.
“Most countries in the world recognize the truth about this war,” declared Mr. Zelensky who faced the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassili Nebenzia.
“This is a criminal and unjustified aggression by Russia against our nation, which aims to seize the territory and resources of Ukraine,” he said.
Mr. Zelensky, dressed in his usual khaki green fatigues, called on the UN to remove Russia’s veto power in the Security Council, speaking of a major reform needed. “The veto in the hands of the aggressor blocks the UN,” he said.
“It is impossible to stop this war, because all efforts face a veto from the aggressor or those who support him,” added the man who has embodied Ukrainian resistance to Russia for a year and a half.
This is the first time since the start of the Russian invasion of his country on February 24, 2022, that President Zelensky has spoken in person before the UN Security Council.
Wednesday’s meeting, carefully choreographed, took place at the highest level with the successive interventions of numerous leaders from around the world, including the Japanese Fumio Kishida, the Canadian Justin Trudeau and the German Olaf Scholz.
A sign of a tense atmosphere, the Russian ambassador complained at the start of the meeting that the Ukrainian president was authorized to speak before the other members of the Council, denouncing a body “transformed into a one-man show” and a “spectacle “.
To which Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who holds the presidency of the Council, replied: “Stop the war and President Zelensky will no longer speak.”
“Legitimate tool”
Speaking first, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern that the conflict was in violation of the UN charter and was “exacerbating geopolitical crises and divisions” around the world.
He notably called on Russia to return to the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain from which Moscow withdrew.
The interventions followed one another, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, returning from a recent trip to Ukraine, accusing Russia of committing “war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine almost on a daily basis”.
“It is a war against the very idea of the United Nations […] which concerns us all,” added her French counterpart Catherine Colonna.
On the Russian side, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who entered the Council room when Mr. Blinken was speaking, defended the “legitimate tool” that is the Russian veto.
“The use of the veto is a legitimate tool stipulated in the United Nations Charter,” he said.
He did not attend President Zelensky’s speech.
While Ukraine is engaged in a difficult counter-offensive and the war is getting bogged down, the Ukrainian president continued his diplomatic offensive on Wednesday in New York where the great leaders of the world are gathered for the Assembly annual general meeting of the United Nations. In the notable absence, however, of the Chinese Xi Jinping, the Russian Vladimir Putin, the French Emmanuel Macron and the British Rishi Sunak.
After New York, Mr. Zelensky must go to Washington on Thursday to be received by American President Joe Biden, who leads the coalition in support of Kyiv.
Speaking at the UN on Tuesday, the latter castigated Russia which “believes that the world will tire and let it brutalize Ukraine without consequences”.
Speaking on Tuesday from the podium of the General Assembly, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of committing “genocide” in Ukraine and tried to rally sometimes skeptical countries of the South to his cause by telling them that they had They too have an interest in the victory of Kyiv.
He argued that Russia uses nuclear power and energy “as a weapon”, which impacts Ukraine as well as “the rest of the world”.
But after a year and a half of war with cascading impacts on the world, particularly on food security, certain countries of the South are pleading more and more openly for a diplomatic solution.
Several leaders including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have called for “intensifying” peace efforts, because “war will have no winners and peace no losers”.