During the night, when Vladimir Putin had just ordered a military operation in Ukraine, the Ukrainian and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations had tense exchanges.
“There is no purgatory for war criminals. They’re going straight to hell, ambassador.” The chilling words were uttered by the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya when Vladimir Putin had just ordered a military operation in his country. They were intended for his Russian counterpart, Vassili Nebenzia, while an urgent meeting of the Security Council was being held during which the Russian president had his speech published. “It is too late, my dear colleagues, to speak of de-escalation. I call on each of you to do everything possible to stop the war.”
In video: the first images of the conflict
Visibly marked, Sergiy Kyslytsya urged Vassili Nebenzia to “call Putin, call Lavrov to put an end to the aggression”. For his part, the Russian ambassador refused to use the term war, taking up the words of the Russian president by evoking “a special military operation” to qualify the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine, passing through Belarus and the separatist territories and self-proclaimed republics in the east of the country. “We are not aggressive towards the Ukrainian people but towards the junta in power in Kiev”, added the Russian ambassador, while Vladimir Putin threatened those who oppose the conflict with “consequences that you have never known “. “You have a phone. You can call”, prompted Kyslytsya, who was dismissed: “I have already said everything I know at the moment”.
To read : Ukraine: Macron calls on Russia to “immediately put an end” to military operations
After the session, the words of the Russian ambassador were stronger in criticizing his Ukrainian counterpart: “You want me to analyze the delusional semantics of a person whose president violates the charter, whose president has declared war and he plays with words,” he replied to a journalist. “This is madness. Madness.”
“President Putin, in the name of humanity, bring your troops back to Russia!”
After weeks of diplomatic negotiations to avoid a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Antonio Guterres on Wednesday evening implored Vladimir Putin to “stop” the said operation: “President Putin, in the name of humanity, bring your troops back to Russia!” launched the Secretary General of the United Nations. “This is the saddest moment of my tenure,” he continued. “In the name of humanity, let us not allow the outbreak in Europe of what could be the worst war since the beginning of the century.” In the event of a generalized war, he added, “it is difficult to predict how dramatic it will be, in terms of the number of people who will die, the number of people who will be displaced, the number of people who will lose hope in the future”.
“At the precise moment when we were meeting in Council to seek peace, Putin delivered a message of war, with total disregard for the responsibility of this Council”, thundered Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the United Nations, who wants to pass a resolution stating that Russia is in violation of the United Nations Charter and the 2015 resolution on the situation in Ukraine.
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