Zelensky at the UN: “Putin must be stopped, security can only be achieved with weapons”

Brussels – From the podium of the United Nations, Volodymyr Zelensky warns global leaders about the danger posed by Vladimir Putin to international security. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, which is underway in New York this afternoon (24 September), the Ukrainian president delivered a strong speech against his Russian counterpart and renewed his appeal to his Western partners to support Kyiv. 

“Only we can guarantee our security,” he said at the start of his much-anticipated monologue, reiterating his country’s right to defend itself against the aggression launched by the Federation in February 2022. The only absolute guarantee of security, he says, is “friends with guns“: the United States, first and foremost, but also the European and NATO allies gathered in the coalition of the willing. 

A cold shower of cynicism that lays bare a timeless truth, even if it is usually omitted from the rhetoric of public proclamations: “Weapons decide who survives,” Zelensky urges, and international law itself “does not work without weapons” and without “powerful friends truly willing to defend it.” Friends such as Donald Trump, for example, whom the Ukrainian leader met last night in a bilateral meeting described as “positive.” And never mind if Uncle Sam, when necessary, uses his weapons to bend international law (for example, by bombing Iranian nuclear sites).

Moreover, following that meeting, the US president appeared to change his mind on the conflict for the umpteenth time, perhaps even more resoundingly than usual. “I think that Ukraine, with the support of the EU, is capable of fighting and regaining” all of its territories within the 1991 borders, Trump wrote on Truth, not excluding that Kyiv might even “go further”, alluding to new encroachments into Russia. 

Trump called the Federation a “paper tiger” since it “has fought aimlessly for three and a half years a war that should have taken less than a week to be won by a true military power.” “Putin and Russia are in great economic difficulties, and this is the right time for Ukraine to act,” he concluded, explaining, “We will continue to supply NATO with weapons so that NATO can dispose of them as it wishes.” That is, with all the evidence, to send them to Kyiv. 

From the Glass Palace, Zelensky then lashed out directly at the aggressor: “There is no truce because Russia refuses” to sit at the negotiating table, he added. On the contrary, he warned, “Putin will continue to pursue the war, expanding and intensifying it” far beyond Ukraine. “Russian drones are already flying over Europe,” he recalls, referring to the invasions of the airspaces of several Eastern NATO members (Poland, Romania, and Baltic republics) that have occurred in recent days. 

Also in Moscow’s crosshairs, the Ukrainian president assures us, is Chisinau. “Moldova is defending itself once again from Russia’s interference,” he reiterated, echoing the multiple alarm bells sounded by the President of the Republic, Maia Sandu, on the massive influence campaigns orchestrated by the Kremlin to sabotage the vote on 28 September and bring the small Balkan country back into its orbit.

For Zelensky, the stability of the Old Continent will only be safeguarded by deterring the tsar from pursuing his neo-imperialist aims. “Stop Putin now is less costly than trying to protect every port and every ship from terrorists with sea drones,” he argues. At the moment, however, the Russian president does not appear to be intent on ceasing hostilities. The European Commission has recently put together the 19th package of sanctions against Moscow, which the Twenty-Seven must unanimously approve; however, the Twelve-Star Club continues to import Russian oil and gas. 

Finally, the Ukrainian president warned global leaders about the risks associated with technological development in the servicing of war, which is evolving faster than the ability of states to defend themselves. “There are now tens of thousands of people who know how to kill professionally using drones,” he said, and the time would be near when drones will attack autonomously “without any human involvement except the few who control artificial intelligence systems.” “We are experiencing the most destructive arms race in human history,” he concluded, having just called for more weapons to defend against invasion.