World leaders denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
World leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York have denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told the assembly the U.N.’s credibility is in danger because of the invasion by Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, and reforms of the UN Security Council (UNSC) were needed.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a conduct that tramples the philosophy and principles of the U.N. charter … It should never be tolerated,” Kishida said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Putin will only give up his “imperial ambitions” that risk destroying Ukraine and Russia if he recognizes he cannot win the war.
“This is why we will not accept any peace dictated by Russia and this is why Ukraine must be able to fend off Russia’s attack,” Scholz said in his first address to the General Assembly.
Planned referendums
Moscow-installed leaders in four occupied areas of Ukrainian regions have announced plans to hold referendums on joining Russia.
In the apparently coordinated move, pro-Russian figures announced referendums for September 23-27 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia provinces, representing around 15% of Ukrainian territory, or an area about the size of Hungary.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was aware of reports Putin might be considering ordering a mobilization.
That would do nothing to undermine Ukraine’s ability to push back Russian aggression, Sullivan said, adding that Washington rejected any such referendums “unequivocally”.
“The Russians can do whatever they want. It will not change anything,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday in response to reporters’ questions at the United Nations.
In a tweet, he added: “Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”
If the referendum plan “wasn’t so tragic it would be funny,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters ahead of the U.N. assembly in New York.
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Some pro-Kremlin figures framed the referendums for occupied regions as an ultimatum to the West to accept Russian territorial gains or face an all-out war with a nuclear-armed foe.
“Encroachment onto Russian territory is a crime which allows you to use all the forces of self–defense,” Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and now hawkish deputy chairman of Putin’s Security Council, said on social media.
Reframing the fighting in occupied territory as an attack on Russia could give Moscow a justification to mobilize its 2 million-strong military reserves.
Moscow has so far resisted such a move despite mounting losses.
Russia already considers Luhansk and Donetsk, which together make up the Donbas region Moscow partially occupied in 2014, to be independent states.
Ukraine and the West consider all parts of Ukraine held by Russian forces to be illegally occupied.
Russia now holds about 60% of Donetsk and had captured nearly all of Luhansk by July after slow advances during months of intense fighting.
Those gains are now under threat after Russian forces were driven from neighboring Kharkiv province this month, losing control of their main supply lines for much of the Donetsk and Luhansk front lines.
“The situation on at the front clearly indicates the initiative is with Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address released early on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s position did not change because of “some noise” from Russia, Zelenskiy added in a reference to the referendums.
Zainab Sa’id
