Ukrainians President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday accused Russia of becoming “a terrorist” state carrying out “daily terrorist acts” and urged Moscow’s expulsion from the UN.
In a virtual address to the UN Security Council, Zelenskiy urged the world body to establish an international tribunal to investigate “the actions of Russian occupiers on Ukrainian soil” and to hold the country accountable.
“We need to act urgently to do everything to make Russia stop the killing spree,” Zelenskiy said, adding that otherwise, Russia’s “terrorist activity” would spread to other European countries and Asia, singling out the Baltic states, Poland, Moldova and Kazakhstan.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“What is punished at the level of specific criminals and criminal organizations must not go unpunished at the level of a state that has become a terrorist,” he said. “Daily terrorist acts. No days off. They work as terrorists every day.”
In urging Russia’s ouster from the 193-member UN, Zelenskiy cited Article 6 of the UN Charter, which states that a member “which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”
However, Russia’s expulsion is virtually impossible because, as a permanent council member, Russia would be able to use its veto to block any attempt to oust it.
Photo: AFP
Ukraine called the council meeting after Russia’s recent upsurge in attacks ,including Monday’s fiery airstrike on a crowded shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk that Zelenskiy said killed at least 18 people and wounded 30 others.
“Dozens are missing” and body fragments have been found including hands and feet, he said, adding that unfortunately there might be more victims.
The Ukrainian leader began his speech listing Russia’s attacks in recent days and giving the first names and ages of many of the victims. He ended his address asking the 15 Security Council members and others in the chamber to stand in silent tribute to commemorate the “tens of thousands” of Ukrainian children and adults killed in the war.
All members rose, including Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky.
When he took the floor later, Polyansky protested against giving Zelenskiy a second opportunity to address the council, a decision by Albania, which holds the council presidency this month.
He said the Ukrainian president’s video address contravened the council’s traditions and existing practices, which state that leaders who wish to speak to the council must be present in the chamber.
“The UN Security Council should not be turned into a platform for a remote PR campaign from president Zelenskiy in order to get more weapons from participants at the NATO summit,” which started on Tuesday in Madrid, Polyansky said.
He claimed that there was no Russian strike on the shopping center in Kremenchuk, saying Russian precision weapons struck hangars in the Kremenchuk road machinery plant that contained weapons and ammunition from the US and Europe destined for Ukrainian troops in eastern Donbass.
The shopping center was some distance away, but the detonation of ammunition “created a fire which then spread to the shopping center,” Polyansky said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS