the president of Ukraine, Volodimyr Zelensky, urged the UN Security Council on Tuesday to put an end to “war crimes” once morest Ukrainian civilians committed by Russian troops, who are reportedly preparing a new offensive in the east and south of the country. In Ukraine, Russian troops “killed people in their apartments, in their houses with grenades, crushed civilians with tanks when they were in their cars on the road, just for fun,” Zelensky said in a live video address before the highest body of the UN in New York.
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The Ukrainian president asked the Security Council to exclude Russiaone of its five permanent members, and advocated a reform of the United Nations system so that “the right to veto does not mean the right to die.”
“Now we need Security Council decisions for peace in Ukraine” and if the UN proves incapable of assuming “immediately” that “option”, the other would be “dissolve”, he said.
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His speech came under the impact of the shocking discovery over the weekend of dozens of dead civilians in bushing and other towns in the kyiv region following the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Ukrainian and Western power leaders denounced “war crimes” and “genocide.”
“What we saw in Bucha is not the isolated act of a lone unit. It is a deliberate campaign to kill, torture, rape, commit atrocities”US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
This session of the Security Council had been scheduled for a long time and was chaired by the British ambassador.
“Only for your pleasure”
In the Ukraine, Zelensky said, “they killed people in their apartments, in their houses with grenades, smashed civilians with tanks when they were inside their cars in the middle of the road, just for their pleasure.”
“They tore limbs apart, they cut throats. The women were raped and killed in front of their children.”declared from a white-walled office with a flag of Ukraine background.
These actions show that “now the Charter of the United Nations is literally violated, from its first article,” he said. Zelenskywho called for Russia to be “held accountable” for “the worst war crimes” committed, according to him, since World War II.
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“If this continues, countries will only be able to rely on the power of their own forces to guarantee security, and no longer on international law, on international institutions”and the United Nations “will have to close”.
“The UN Charter must be restored immediately”, he asked.
The Ukrainian president also denounced the “colonization” of Russia.
“They need our wealth, our people. Russia has already sent hundreds of thousands of our citizens to her country. They have kidnapped more than 2,000 children,” added the Ukrainian president. “Russia wants to turn Ukrainians into silent slaves.”
Following this statement and the release of a video of “terrifying images”, in the words of British Ambassador Barbara Woodward, the Russian representative to the Security Council responded to the Ukrainian president.
“We did not come to Ukraine to conquer territories,” Vasili Nebenzia said, once once more rejecting accusations that the Russian army committed atrocities.
“You have seen dead bodies and heard testimonies, but you have only seen what they showed you. You cannot ignore the blatant inconsistencies in the version of events promoted by the Ukrainian and Western media.”
He added that his country has evacuated “600,000 people” from Ukraine, including “more than 119,000 children.” “And we’re not talking, in any way, (of people leaving) under duress or kidnapping, as our Western partners describe it, but voluntary decisions,” he said.
