President Biden addressed the United Nations General Assembly today warning world leaders that a nuclear ware “cannot be won and must never be fought.” He directly addressed Russia’s “brutal, needless war” against Ukraine as a violation of the United Nations international charter and strongly emphasized that the United States “does not seek conflict or cold war” with China.
Biden began his speech to the UN reflecting on the many struggles he faced during his presidency. “In the last year, our world has experienced great upheaval — growing crisis and food insecurity; record heat, floods, droughts, COVID-19, inflation, and a brutal, needless war — a war chosen by one man.”
“To be very blunt, let us speak plainly. A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map.” he said. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.”
President Biden mentioned Vladimir Putin by name and said the Russian President made “overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the nonproliferation regime.”
“Now, Russia is calling more soldiers to join the fight and the Kremlin is organizing a sham referendum to try to annex parts of Ukraine — an extremely significant violation of the U.N. charter.”
“Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened,” Biden said. “But no one threatened Russia — no one other than Russia sought conflict. In fact, we warned it was coming. And, with many of you, we worked to try to avert Putin’s own words, make his true purpose unmistakable just before he invaded.”
Putin’s war has provided “horrifying evidence of Russia’s atrocities and war crimes,” Biden said, also addressing the discovery of mass graves in Ukraine with bodies “showing signs of torture.”
“This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state — plain and simple — and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people,” he said. “Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe that should not, that should make your blood run cold.”
President Biden said the United States lead the way in providing “massive levels of security assistance and humanitarian aid and direct economic support for Ukraine,” with the help of many other partners “to help Ukraine defend itself.”
“The United States is also working closely with our allies and partners to impose costs on Russia to deter attacks against NATO territory to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities and war crimes,” he said. “If nations can pursue their own imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for.”
Biden emphasized,”we chose liberty. We chose sovereignty. We chose principles, to which every party to the United Nations charter is beholding. We stood with Ukraine.”