Intergovernmental Organization is Failing its Mandate of Preventing Future Wars, Ukraine President says
President Volodymyr Zelensky says the United Nations is failing to exercise its principal mandate of preventing future wars and maintain international peace.
He urged the intergovernmental organization in New York on April 5 to reform itself and accused Russia of abusing its veto power within the body’s Security Council.
“We are dealing with a state [Russia] that turns the right of veto in the UN Security Council into a right of death,” Zelensky said via video link just days after Russian war atrocities toward civilians were exposed in the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv.
He added that the “strength of the UN charter” must be restored in remarks that came after at least 300 people had been “killed and tortured” by invading Russian forces in the suburb of Bucha before retreating earlier this month.
Zelensky said the Russians, some of whom Ukraine’s military says were from Khabarovsk Krai in the country’s Far East, targeted people who had served in the military. They also shot and killed woman children.
Some civilians “were crushed by tanks in civilian cars in the middle of the road. For fun,” Ukraine’s second war-time president said.
Women “were raped and killed in front of their own children,” Zelensky added in a 15-minute address that ended with a video of the discovered Russian atrocities.
He said Moscow is committing the “most heinous war crimes of all time since the end of World War II [after which the UN was founded].”
Russia denied killing civilians in Bucha, blaming Kyiv instead for staging the savagery that was discovered.
Zelensky called for soldiers who savagely attacked civilians, including those who issued the orders, to face trial for the massacres.
On April 5, Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the SBU, published audio intercepts of Russian soldiers allegedly being given orders to shoot civilians.
“Yes, bring them all down f—! There are civilians – at the expense of everyone, damn it!” one alleged Russian commander is allegedly heard telling a soldier.
Sanctions
The U.S. and European Union (EU) have announced a new set of sanctions are being prepared in coordination to punish Russia for its ongoing alleged war crimes.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said on Twitter that “we will impose an import ban on coal from Russia worth 4 billion euros per year.”
She added: “Second, a full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, among them is VTB, the second largest Russian bank.”
The EU is also targeting Russia’s access to high technology.
“Further targeted export bans worth 10 billion euros in areas in which Russia is vulnerable: this includes, for example, quantum computers and advanced semiconductors, but also sensitive machinery and transportation equipment.”
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce sanctions on additional Russian financial institutions, as well as Kremlin officials, CNBC reported.
New investment in Russia and in state-owned enterprises will also be banned, according to the reported slated restrictive measures.
Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 as part of a war he has waged against the neighboring country since 2014.
Then, Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and occupied parts of the easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died since and Kyiv says more than 18,000 Russian troops have been killed since the renewed invasion.
