Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed China’s peace proposals as insincere and even treacherous at the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Wednesday, insisting only his own proposals can bring “real and just peace” to his people by ending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion.
Zelensky began his address to the Assembly by recalling the “terrifying report” he received a month into the invasion about Russian tanks firing at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia – which, he reminded his audience, is the largest nuclear plant in Europe.
“The Russian army stormed this facility just as brutally as any other during this war, without thinking about the consequences, possibly disastrous,” he said.
“This was one of the most horrifying moments of the war, when no one could know how Russian strikes on the nuclear facility would end, and everyone in Ukraine was reminded of what ‘Chernobyl’ means,” he continued, alluding to the infamous 1986 nuclear disaster, which occurred on Ukraine’s soil when it was part of the Soviet Union.
Zelensky repeatedly warned that Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia represents “the major source of radiation danger in Europe, possibly the world,” and demanded the facility be returned to Ukrainian control.
He extended that warning by musing that “smoke from fires in war-torn cities can reach other countries,” and accused Putin of committing “ecocide” by heedlessly causing massive environmental damage during his invasion of Ukraine.
“If – God forbid – Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants, radiation will not respect state borders,” he said.
Zelensky said Putin’s vicious strategy was to wipe out Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, inflicting so much suffering on its civilian population that Kyiv might finally surrender.
“As of today, Russia has destroyed all of our thermal plants, and a large portion of our hydroelectric capacity. This is how Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians – ordinary families, women, children, ordinary towns, ordinary villages. Putin wants to leave them in the dark and cold this winter, forcing Ukraine to suffer and surrender,” he said.
Zelensky accused other countries of helping Russia, name-checking North Korea and Iran – a “telling choice of friends,” in the Ukrainian leader’s opinion. He accused Russia’s allies of feeding it satellite data that helped the Russians target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
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Zelensky was also highly critical of Russia’s ally China, dismissing the “sets of principles” China and Brazil began pushing this month as useless, or worse, because such “half-hearted settlement plans” ignore “the interests and suffering of Ukrainians.”
Zelensky went further and suggested these alternative peace plans were cynical gambits to “give Putin the political space to continue the war.”
“When the Chinese-Brazilian duo tries to grow into a choir of voices – with someone in Europe, with someone in Africa, saying something alternative to a full and just peace, the question arises – what is the true interest?” he darkly mused.
“Maybe someone wants a Nobel Prize for their political biography for frozen truce instead of real peace, but the only prizes Putin will give you in return are more suffering and disasters,” he warned.
Zelensky said his goals continue to include holding “those responsible for war crimes accountable,” and recovering all the prisoners Russia has taken, including Ukrainian civilians kidnapped by the invaders.
The Ukrainian president said quick action was needed to prevent “a second or third phase of this Russian invasion.”
“I want peace for my people – real and just peace,” he concluded.