In Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first in-person appearance at a UN Security Council meeting on Moscow’s invasion of his country, he told a special meeting that the Russian veto has rendered the world body “ineffective”.
Zelenskyy said that the United Nations was at a dead end regarding aggressions and suggested Russia be stripped of its veto right as one of five permanent members of the post-World War II Security Council as punishment for attacking Ukraine.
“Everyone in the world can see what exactly makes the UN ineffective. In this seat in the Security Council, which Russia occupies illegally due to behind-the-scenes manipulations after the collapse of the Soviet Union, sit liars whose job it is to justify the aggression and genocide committed by Russia,” he said.
“The veto in the hands of the aggressor is what drove the UN into a dead end. No matter who you are, the existing UN system still makes you less than the veto power that only a few have and that is used by one – Russia – to the detriment of all other UN members,” he said.
“Many years of talks and projects on reforming the UN should become a process of reforming the UN. The use of the veto is what needs reform, and this could be a key reform,” he noted.
He added that the only way to a lasting peace was a full withdrawal of Russian troops and restoration of Kyiv’s control over its territory within the 1991 borders following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Russian forces on Wednesday shelled the city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine, killing four people, the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office has said.
Zelenskyy’s visit to the United Nations coincided with a pivotal moment for Ukraine’s military campaign to eject Russian forces from Ukraine. (AlJazeera)