Presidents Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy took their case for supporting Ukraine to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, with Biden claiming Moscow believes the world will grow weary of the war and allow Russian forces to “brutalize Ukraine without consequence.”
Biden said that if Moscow is allowed to win in Ukraine, no country would be safe from “naked aggression.”
“Russia alone bears responsibility for this war,” Biden said. “Russia alone stands in the way of peace because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory, and Ukraine’s children.”
Biden spoke hours before Zelenskyy made his case, accusing Russia and President Vladimir Putin of not only using the threat of nuclear war to get their way but also weaponizing food, energy, and the forced deportation of children.
“While Russia is pushing the world to the final war, Ukraine is doing everything to ensure that after Russian aggression, no one in the world will dare to attack any nation,” Zelenskyy said in concluding his address of nearly 15 minutes. “Weaponization must be restrained. War crimes must be punished. Deported people must come back home. And the occupier must return to their own land.”
Earlier, Zelenskyy said he doesn’t believe Russia should remain a member of the global body given its audacious and bloody invasion of his country.
Sean McFate, a professor at Syracuse University and senior fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank, said the U.N. mission of preventing and ending wars has “become a punchline.” He cited struggles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Zaire and Somalia and genocides in Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq.
“Bigger question,” McFate said in an email to USA TODAY. “Will the UN be around in 2050? Only on letterhead.”
Zelenskyy to meet Biden: Ukraine leader will address Congress and UN: Updates
∎ In his most memorable line, Zelenskyy said, “Evil cannot be trusted. Ask Prigozhin if one bets on Putin’s promises.” Two months after spearheading a failed insurrection, mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a suspicious plane crash.
USA today
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