Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, has a recipe to stop Vladimir Putin's invading hordes. His antidote is to reform the UN, given its inability to resolve conflicts. It is one more request to try to transform an organization anchored in the bipolarity of 1945, still far from the current multipolar world.
Zelensky's plan for peace is based on withdrawing Russia's privilege to sit on the Security Council, the executive body of the United Nations, and canceling its right to veto. “It is impossible to end the war because all efforts are vetoed by the aggressor,” he stressed shortly after starting a session that he attended in person. At no point, however, did the expected face-to-face between Zelensky and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Putin's main equerry, take place.
The meeting began with the attempt of the Russian ambassador, Vasili Nebenzia, to prevent “the enemy” from speaking before any of the members of the Council.
The Russian accused the presidency of the body, exercised by Albania, represented by its prime minister, Edi Rama, of favoring "the show" of the Ukrainian. Rama replied that “this is not a special operation” to bring in Zelensky, in reference to the euphemism that Moscow uses to avoid talking about war. “It is very impressive that the indoctrination about violating the rules comes from you,” the Albanian insisted. Given the ambassador's insistence, the other cut him off: "If Russia ended the war, Zelensky would not be here."
The Ukrainian president maintained that his country has the right to self-defense and that sending weapons for that work and imposing sanctions on Russia means defending the founding Charter of the UN.
Despite the interest he showed at the beginning, Nebenzia acted distracted by looking at the phone during Zelensky's speech. Once she had finished, Lavrov entered. The Foreign Minister justified the invasion of Ukraine and reiterated that the West mounted a coup d'état in that country to install a president favorable to its interests.
By this time Zelensky had already left the room, after lamenting that, unfortunately, “Russia illegally occupies a seat on the Security Council through manipulation after the fall of the Soviet Union, a seat that has been taken by “liars whose work "It consists of whitewashing Russia and the genocide they commit."
Zelensky denounced the UN blockade due to Russia's misuse of its veto right, to the detriment of other countries that lack fair representation. For this reason, he urged reform and advocated that the General Assembly have the ability to suspend and withdraw the right of veto whenever an aggressor uses it.
Zelensky argues that Moscow has violated the Charter that the organization adopted in 1945. Something as if Hitler had usurped power and took advantage of the UN to escape invasions and the Holocaust unscathed.
The Ukrainian proposed that a State be removed from the Council "when it resorts to aggression against another nation in violation of the UN Charter." “Our aspiration for peace must lead to reform. There are 574 reasons, the 574 days of war,” he insisted.
At the same time that Zelensky was speaking at the Security Council in New York, a new front was opening in Warsaw due to his statements the previous day, in which he had stated that “it is worrying that some in Europe are playing the role of solidarity in a political theater, turning cereals into a thriller. It seems like they are playing their own roles, but what they are doing is helping to set the stage for an actor from Moscow.”
Poland, one of the countries that has most supported the nation invaded by Russia but fears that Ukrainian agricultural strength will harm Polish farmers, felt addressed. The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador “urgently.”
The Polish Deputy Foreign Minister told the Ukrainian ambassador that it is a “false and particularly unjustified thesis regarding Poland, which has supported Ukraine since the first days of the war,” according to the Ministry in a statement. Poland hosts 1.6 million Ukrainian refugees, mainly women and children.
In recent days, tension has grown between Warsaw and Kyiv over grain. Brussels announced on Friday the lifting of the veto on the entry of Ukrainian cereal, a measure granted last May to five countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria) to protect their farmers from the consequent destabilization of prices.
After the European Commission's announcement, Warsaw, Budapest and Bratislava immediately decreed unilateral embargoes, to which Kyiv responded on Monday with a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned this Wednesday that, if Kyiv intensifies the grain conflict, Poland will expand the list of banned Ukrainian products. Poland holds elections on October 15, and the agrarian vote is key to the continuity of Morawiecki's party, the ultranationalist Law and Justice (PiS).
