Russian and US diplomatic chiefs traded accusations at a Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Thursday, with Sergei Lavrov accusing the West of false narratives and Antony Blinken calling for responsibility for the war.
The two leaders spoke at a ministerial meeting, called by France, on “The fight against impunity in Ukraine”, which was also attended by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, among others. others.
In his statement, Antony Blinken said Russian President Vladimir Putin should be held accountable for “destroying” the international order by waging war against Ukraine.
“The very international order, for which we have gathered here to defend, is crumbling before our eyes. We cannot, we will not allow President Putin to escape,” stressed the US Secretary of State.
For the American, defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity “is much more than defending the right of a nation to choose its own path: “It is also about protecting an international order in which no nation can redraw borders another by force,” he said. he said.
“If we fail to uphold this principle when the Kremlin so blatantly violates it, we send a message to aggressors everywhere to ignore it as well. We put all countries at risk. We open the door to a less secure and less peaceful world.” said the Secretary of State.
In Blinken’s view, Putin’s announcement on Wednesday of plans to mobilize some 300,000 reservists as world leaders meet at the United Nations General Assembly in New York was an indication of the Council’s “total contempt for Moscow.” of security.
In addition to the partial mobilization announcement, Putin recalled the importance of his country’s nuclear arsenal as an argument against the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Putin indicated that he will use “all the means at his disposal to protect” the country, alluding to nuclear weapons: “This is not a ‘bluff’,” he warned during a speech to the nation.
In this regard, Antony Blinken called on all members of the UN Security Council to “send a clear message that reckless nuclear threats [da Rússia] must stop immediately.”
“Tell him to stop putting his interests above the interests of the world, including his own people. Tell him to stop demeaning this Council and everything it stands for,” appealed the American, addressing diplomatic missions there.
On the other hand, Lavrov accused Ukraine and the West of trying to impose a “completely different narrative” on the conflict, which places Moscow as the aggressor.
The Russian minister accused Ukraine and its allies of “impunity” in the eastern Donbass region, claiming that kyiv was denying basic rights to its Russian-speaking population.
“People were deprived of their pensions, allowances, access to education and basic civil rights,” Lavrov advocated.
The leader of Russian diplomacy also accused the West of arming Ukraine with the sole purpose of weakening Russia and assured that this policy makes the United States and Europe “part” of this conflict.
In addition, the Russian minister accused Ukraine of “terrorist tactics” such as the use of “human shields” and stated that the country has become a “completely totalitarian state with Nazi overtones in which the norms of international humanitarian law are trampled on.” .
Unlike his international counterparts present at the meeting, Lavrov chose to sit at the Security Council table only at the time of his speech, having left the room immediately afterwards.
This meeting of the Security Council was chaired by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, and also featured statements by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan.
As it was a ministerial meeting, the heads of diplomacy from all the powers of the Security Council were present.
Member states such as Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania and Poland were also allowed to participate in the meeting. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, also participated in the meeting.
Even before the meeting began, there were already signs of a charged atmosphere in the Security Council room.
The head of the Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, ironically told the press that he planned to maintain a “safe social distance” with Lavrov during this meeting.
Already during the meeting, Kuleba indicated that the partial mobilization decreed by Russia will be useless: “They can mobilize 300,000 or 500,000 people, but they will not win this war.”
“Russia must know one thing: it will never be able to kill us all,” the Ukrainian minister stressed during his speech.
In this sense, the official compared the return to Ukraine of “tens of thousands” of citizens willing to defend the country as soon as the invasion was announced, with the “thousands” of Russians who on Wednesday “booked international flights to leave” Russia so soon as Putin announced the mobilization of reservists.
Kuleba saw the measures announced by Putin as a demonstration of “defeat”.
“Today, every Ukrainian is a weapon ready to defend Ukraine and the principles of the United Nations Charter. Russia will fail and will have to bear full responsibility for the crime of aggression and war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,” he insisted. the ukrainian
Source: TSF
