Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko urged the United Nations during his General Assembly speech Wednesday to intervene and curb Russia’s military invasion of his country, lamenting that Russia’s “abuse of [its] veto power” at the Security Council has acted as a “brake” on legitimate U.N. intervention.
Poroshenko accused Russian authorities of killing, injuring, displacing, and kidnapping over a million in his country.
“Moscow turns Ukrainian to orphans. It tortures our patriots in its prisons. Over 1.5 million people became internally displaced persons. They still can’t return to their homes,” Poroshenko told the General Assembly. “Russia constantly multiplies the human tragedy, which lately received a new dimension: ecological. … It poisons the Ukrainian soil and causes an environmental disaster not only in the occupied Crimea, but in Donbas as well. This has been a daily reality for Ukrainians for four years now. Thousands of deaths, destruction, displacement and human suffering.”
Poroshenko noted that Russia has lost cases in international courts against Ukraine and, much like tentative ally China, has largely ignored those rulings.
“This is the thing about today’s Russia: they don’t care. They don’t care about suffering. They don’t care about truth. They don’t care about law. They think that their military might and status in the U.N. give them this right. It’s up to us to prove them wrong. It’s up to us to make them care. Otherwise, what’s the idea of us being here?” Poroshenko asked.
The Ukrainian president repeatedly warned that the United Nations would be essentially useless if it did not intervene to curb Russia.
“The international community’s ability to ensure systemic and inevitable responsibility for each and every violation of international laws – first and foremost norms and principles of the UN Charter – is the benchmark indicating how successful we, as the family of nations can be in achieving common goals,” Poroshenko said. “Ensuring responsibility is never an easy feat. Let me be clear on this point: Nothing will stop Moscow from continuing its aggressive expansionist policies if it does not face a united stand of the international community, if punishment for its actions does not become inevitable.”
“It is due to the lack of relevant punishment that after Georgia came Ukraine, that after Lytvinenko came Skrypals, that after Aleppo came Idlib. The Kremlin has no intention to stop,” he added.
Russia, he suggested, “kills. It ruins homes. It lies on an industrial scale. It pretends that Ukraine, as well as Georgia, attacked themselves. Do we know which neighbor of Russia will ‘attack itself’ next?”
“Your silence is exactly what the Kremlin weaponizes against Ukraine and, ultimately, against all of us!” Poroshenko concluded.
Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. Since then, it has taken pains to use its new foothold to shut off maritime traffic in the Sea of Azov, which lies between Ukraine and Russia. In July, Russia expanded its naval presence with 40 ships in that sea after constructing a bridge across the Kerch Strait, essentially blocking Ukraine’s access to the sea on the east. This particularly affects commerce in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city whose shipments must now pass through the bridge area, where Russia can stop and inspect anything coming trhough. In 2017, Russian shutdowns of traffic through the strait resulted in a 43-percent drop in freight traffic.
Ukraine’s government has repeatedly denounced Russia for deliberately blocking Ukrainian shipments to hurt its economy, making a full takeover of east Ukraine easier.
On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard has the transfer scheduled of two ships to Ukraine, while Poroshenko is in the country. They are expected to be used in the Sea of Azov.
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