Zelensky thinks that Russian Aggression could extend beyond Ukraine
The War in Ukraine is Not a Giant Crime: President Zelensky’s U.N. Security Council Address to the United Nations Security Council
President Zelensky of Ukraine watched from the audience as Mr. Biden talked about Russia’s plan to brutalizeUkraine without consequence. “But I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles” of the United Nations Charter “to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? Is the independence of any nation safe if we are able to carve up Ukraine? I suggest that the answer is no.
President Biden sought to rally the world on Tuesday to follow in the footsteps of Ukraine and warned against appeasing Russia, which he said would encourage further use of force.
The president used his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly to try to counter war fatigue even as Congress in Washington continues to hold up further military aid to the Ukrainian government, and as the Russians continue to wage war around the globe.
Mr. Zelensky claimed that Ukrainian children were sent to Russia and turned against their home country. Mr. Zelensky said that this was clearly a genocide. hatred never stops when it is weaponized against one nation.
Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky received strong applause from some of the delegations in the hall, but many others sat on their hands. Mr. Putin, the target of an arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court, did not come to New York for the annual opening session, but his envoy sat in Russia’s seat during Mr. Zelensky’s speech taking notes or looking down at his phone.
Mr. Zelensky was to address the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday with a plan to discourage war even after the fighting in his country eventually ends and then will head to Washington, where on Thursday he will meet with Mr. Biden at the White House, stop by the Pentagon and visit Capitol Hill to plead for continuing assistance.
He will not address a Congress meeting in the same way that he did during the war in Iraq, and he will face resistance from some right-wing Republicans who are trying to block his request for more aid. The war is not central to America’s national interest and the money could be better spent on border security or other priorities.
Mr. Biden has continued to provide aid using previously approved funds, and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced on Tuesday that American M1 Abrams tanks would be arriving in Ukraine soon. “That will add another formidable armor capability to join the weapons that are already on the battlefield,” he said in Germany after a meeting of about 50 countries supporting Ukraine. He added that they had their backs to the brave forces of Ukraine. The fight between Ukraine and Russia is one of the great causes of our time.
Mr. Biden’s speech came as other major leaders skipped the annual opening session of the General Assembly, including Mr. Putin and President Xi Jinping of China, effectively leaving the stage to the American president. He reached out to the so-called global south, the area that is traditionally unaligned developing countries that his advisers call the “swing states” of the foreign policy world, in order to get them to see the threats posed by Russia and China.
While he was uncompromising about the war against Russia and warned against appeasing them, he tried to find ways to work together with Beijing while denying that he was trying to contain them. “We seek to responsibly manage the competition between our countries so it does not tip into conflict,” he said.
There are many major issues facing the world today, like terrorism, human rights, women’s rights, and arms control, but no new ground on any of them. He stressed the dangers of climate change as he urged more action to combat it, citing heat waves, wildfires, drought and the flooding in Libya.
If we do not reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, then this will be a very long story for the world, he said. Under his administration, he said, “the United States has treated this crisis as the existential threat from the moment we took office, not only for us, but for all of humanity.”
First Congressional Meeting of the Vice President: The State of the State and the Role of Foreign Direct Expenditure in the War on Syria
The vice president will be at the UN this week to meet with other world leaders. He was the first sitting president of the soviet union to meet with leaders of other countries that used to exist.
He and Mr. Netanyahu will have their first meeting in the United States since Mr. Biden became president, and they won’t be at the White House. In his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Biden touted his efforts to open diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia while emphasizing his support for a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with Palestinians.
He said Russia begins a new war each decade, noting invasions and military interventions in Georgia and Syria as well as its pressure on other ex- soviet countries.
“War crimes must be punished, deported people must come home and the occupier must return to their own land,” Mr. Zelensky said before finishing with the historical national saying that has become a defiant mantra since the war began: “Slava Ukraini,” or “Glory to Ukraine.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy responded sharply when asked about America’s commitment to Ukraine. Zelensky may become Congress’s next member. Is he our president? I don’t think I have to do anything. and I think I have questions for him,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“Where is the accountability on the money that we have already spent?” he asked. “What is the plan for victory? I think that is what the American public wants to know.
The U.S. Support of Ukraine During the Second Year of the Cold War: A Comment on Zelenskyy’s Address to the United Nations Security Council
Zelenskyy spoke to Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep in New York on Wednesday, ahead of his participation in a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
The United States gave over $112 billion in humanitarian, financial and military support to Ukraine in just four years. The topic has become divisive in the second year of the war.
Most Democrats, and even many Senate Republicans, agree that U.S. support to Ukraine has important practical and strategic implications. But many House Republicans are opposed for fiscal and foreign policy reasons, as NPR has reported.
The government is in a state of limbo with money stuck in limbo as the government works to avoid a shutdown by the end of the month.
He addressed Congress at a special joint session in December 2022, his first visit to the U.S. since the war broke out. In March, he recorded a video in response to Russia’s invasion.
