UN has failed over Ukraine conflict: Zelensky
Published on: Thursday, March 24, 2022
By: AFP
Ukrainian President Zelensky speaks to members of Japan’s Lower House of parliament via a video link at the House of Representatives office building in Tokyo.
TOKYO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Japan’s parliament Wednesday that the United Nations had failed over the conflict in his country and reforms were needed, calling for more pressure on Russia.The international body has been hamstrung because Russia is a permanent member of its Security Council and has effectively blocked condemnation or action over its invasion of Ukraine.
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“Neither the United Nations nor the UN Security Council have functioned. Reforms are needed,” the Ukrainian leader told lawmakers via videolink.
“We need a tool to preemptively ensure global security. Existing international organisations are not functioning for this purpose, so we need to develop a new, preemptive tool that can actually stop invasions,” Zelensky added.
Japan has marched in lockstep with Western allies to impose tough sanctions on Russian financial institutions and officials, as well as Moscow’s ally Belarus.
It has regularly condemned the invasion, as well as sabre-rattling over the use of nuclear weapons, and has offered Ukraine million of dollars in humanitarian aid and other assistance.
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Zelensky praised Japan as “the first nation in Asia that started piling pressure on Russia”.
“I ask you to continue to impose sanctions,” he added.
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“Let’s make efforts to ensure Russia will want and seek peace. Trade embargoes on Russia must be introduced to stop the tsunami of the invasion against Ukraine.”
Zelensky used the address to Japan, which remains haunted by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, to warn of the dangers his country faced from Russian attacks on nuclear plants and the site of the Chernobyl meltdown.
“Atop shattered reactors are... active processing facilities for nuclear materials. Russia turned that into a war zone,” he said, warning that years would be needed to assess possible environmental effects of Russia’s occupation of Chernobyl.
Zelensky also repeated assertions made by Washington that Russia could be preparing to use chemical weapons, though he provided no specific evidence.
“I’m receiving reports that Russia is preparing attacks using chemical weapons such as sarin, just like Syria,” he told lawmakers in Tokyo, which was the site of a 1995 sarin attack by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult.
Seeking to bolster support for his country, Zelensky has addressed lawmakers around the world—and will speak to the French parliament later in the day.
He has also been invited to address a NATO summit on Thursday.
Zelensky will on Thursday address the Swedish parliament, one month into the Russian invasion of his country, the Riksdag said Wednesday.
The speech, which follows multiple appearances by video link before parliaments in other countries, is scheduled for 10:55 am local time (0955 GMT), the Swedish parliament said.
“I’m honoured that the president of Ukraine wants to address parliament during a raging war,” said speaker Andreas Norlen.
Less than a week after Russian troops invaded on February 24, Zelensky spoke to MEPs in the European Parliament on March 1.
Since then, he has addressed the US Congress, as well as British, Canadian and German lawmakers among others.
Kyiv, which has received large deliveries of mainly anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons from the West, is now calling for “offensive weapons” as deterrence against the Russian army. Sweden has delivered 5,000 anti-tank launchers to Ukraine, breaking it’s doctrine of not sending weapons to countries in active conflict for the first time since 1939.
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