Yesterday at 19:23
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, in his speech at a meeting of the UN General Assembly, presented a peace formula that includes five main components: punishment for aggression, protection of life, restoration of security and territorial integrity, security guarantees and the determination to defend.
“Ukraine wants peace. Europe wants peace. The world wants peace. And we saw who alone wants war. I am addressing on behalf of a state that is forced to defend itself. But which has the formula of the world. This is a formula that punishes a crime, protects life, restores security and territorial integrity, guarantees security and implies decisiveness,” Zelensky stressed.
He emphasized that this war was not provoked by Ukraine and now the people have no other choice but to defend themselves.
“We have held 88 rounds of negotiations in various formats to prevent this war – this is just from the beginning of my presidency until February 24 of this year. But Russia not only did not stop the crime of aggression, which it started back in 2014, but turned it into a full-scale invasion. And we have no other choice but to defend ourselves. This is what we are doing – we are pushing the aggressor beyond the internationally recognized border of the Ukrainian state,” the President of Ukraine said.
Throughout the speech, he named five points of the peace formula:
- Punishment for aggression – until there is full compensation for the war. These are sanctions against the aggressor, including personal ones, the blocking of trade, the isolation of Russia, the creation of a Special Tribunal to punish the Russian Federation for crimes of aggression.
2. Protecting life by all means permitted by the UN Charter. This is defense support – intelligence, weapons, including offensive ones, equipment and shells, defense systems, primarily air defense. Financial support is also needed to maintain internal stability and fulfill social obligations to Ukrainians.
3. Restoration of security and territorial integrity – security of navigation, food, radiation, energy and security from weapons of mass destruction. It is necessary to limit the prices at which Russia exports its energy resources and recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism at all levels and in all countries.
4. Security guarantee. Ukraine has proposals to modernize the security architecture for the country, and hence for Europe and the world. It is a proposal of legally binding multilateral and bilateral treaties. These are the conditions under which the guarantors must act, and the time in which their actions must bring results – results on land, at sea, in the air, in diplomacy and politics, in economics and finance, in providing weapons and intelligence.
5. The determination to defend ourselves is the determination of partners to help Ukraine, and therefore to themselves. And this is the determination of the world to unite around those who are fighting against armed aggression and to put in place one who threatens all.
“This formula of crime and punishment is already well known to Russia. It is also a formula for justice and law and order, which Russia has yet to learn. Like any other potential aggressors,” Zelensky concluded.
He noted that in this formula there is no such position as neutrality.
“Those who talk about neutrality, when human values and the world are under attack, mean something completely different. They talk about indifference. Every man for himself. That’s what they’re talking about. They are interested in each other’s problems conditionally. Take care of each other formally. Protocol sympathize. And therefore, just as conventionally, formally and protocol-wise, they pretend that they are protecting someone, but in fact – only their own narrow interests. This is what creates the conditions for war. This is what needs to be corrected in order to create conditions for peace,” he stressed.
Zelensky excludes that the settlement of relations between Ukraine and Russia can take place on any basis other than the Ukrainian formula for peace.
“The further Russian terror goes, the less likely it is that anyone in the world will sit at the same table with Russia. We are ready for the world. But to a fair and just world. That is why peace is with us,” summed up the head of the Ukrainian state.
