I welcome all who stand for common efforts. I promise that, by being truly united, we can guarantee fair peace for all nations. What is more, unity can prevent wars.
This Hall saw many wars but not as an active defender against aggressions. In many cases, the fear of war. the final war. was the loudest here — the war after which no one would gather in the General Assembly Hall again. The third World War was seen as a nuclear war — a conflict between States on the highway to nukes. Other wars seemed less scary compared to the threat of the so-called great Powers firing their nuclear stockpiles. The twentieth century therefore taught the world to restrain from the use of weapons of mass destruction — not to deploy, not to proliferate, not to threaten with and not to test, but to promote complete nuclear disarmament. Frankly, that is a good strategy. But it should not be the only strategy to protect the world from a final war.
Ukraine gave up its third-largest nuclear arsenal. The world then decided that Russia should become a keeper of such power. Yet history shows that it was Russia that deserved nuclear disarmament the most, back in the 1990s; and Russia deserves it now. Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons. No right.
But nukes are truly not the scariest now. While nukes remain in place, mass destruction is gaining momentum. The aggressor is weaponizing many other things, and those things are used not only against our country, but also against those of all present. There are many conventions that restrict weapons but there are no real restrictions on weaponization.
First, let me give an example — food. Since the start of the full-scale war. the Ukrainian ports in the Black and Azov Seas have been blocked by Russia. Until now. our ports on the Danube River remain the target for missiles and drones. Russia’s attempt to weaponize the food shortage on the global market in exchange for the recognition for some, if not all. of the captured territories is clear. Russia is launching food prices as weapons. The impact spans from the Atlantic coast of Africa to South-East Asia. That is the threat scale.
I would like to thank the leaders who supported our Black Sea Grain Initiative and the Grain From Ukraine programme. United, we made turned weapons back into food. More than 45 nations saw how important it was to make Ukrainian food products available on the market, from Algeria and Spain to Indonesia and China.
Even now. when Russia has undermined the Black Sea Grain Initiative, we are working to ensure food stability. I hope that many Member States will join us in those efforts. We launched a temporary sea-export corridor from our ports, and we are working hard to preserve the land routes for grain exports. It is alarming to see how some of our friends in Europe play out solidarity in a political theatre, making a thriller out of the grain. They may seem to play their own role, but they are in fact helping to set the stage for a Moscow actor.
Second is the weaponization of energy. Many times, the world has witnessed Russia using energy as a weapon. The Kremlin weaponized oil and gas to weaken the leaders of other countries when they came to Red Square. Now the threat is even greater. Russia is weaponizing nuclear energy. Not only is it spreading its unreliable nuclear-power-plant construction technologies, but it is also turning other countries’ power plants into real dirty bombs. Look what Russia did to our Zaporizhzhya power plant. It shelled it and occupied it. and it now blackmails others with radiation leaks. Is there any sense in reducing nuclear weapons when Russia is weaponizing nuclear power plants? That is a scary question. The global security architecture offers no response or protection against such a treacherous radiation threat, and there is no accountability for radiation blackmailers so far.
The third example is children. Unfortunately, various terrorist groups abduct children to put pressure on their families and societies. But never before have mass kidnapping and deportation been a part of Government policy — not until now. We know the names of tens of thousands of children, and have evidence regarding hundreds of thousands of others, kidnapped by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine and later deported. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for that crime. We are trying to get children back home, but time goes by. What will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken. That is clearly genocide.
When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there. Each decade. Russia starts a new war. Parts of Moldova and Georgia remain occupied. Russia turned Syria into ruins, and if it were not for Russia, chemical weapons would have never been used there. Russia has almost swallowed Belarus. It is clearly threatening Kazakhstan and the Baltic States. The goal of the current war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives and our resources into a weapon against those present and against the international rules- based order. Many seats in the General Assembly Hall may become empty if Russia succeeds in its treachery and aggression.
The aggressor disseminates death and brings ruin, even without nukes, but the outcomes are similar. We see towns and villages in Ukraine wiped out by Russian artillery, completely levelled to the ground. We see a war of drones. We know the possible effects of spreading the war into cyberspace. Artificial intelligence could be trained to fight well before it would learn to help humankind. Thank God. people have not yet learned to use climate as a weapon. While humankind fails in the objectives of its climate policy, it means that extreme weather will still have an impact on normal global life, and some evil State will also weaponize its outcomes. When people in the streets of New York and other cities of the world went out on climate protests, we all saw them. When people in Morocco. Libya and other countries die as a result of natural disasters, when islands and countries disappear under water and when tornadoes and deserts spread into new areas, while all that was happening, one unnatural disaster in Moscow
decided to launch a big war and kill tens of thousands of people. We have to stop it.
United, we must act to defeat the aggressor and focus all our capabilities and energy on addressing those challenges. Just as nuclear weapons are limited, the aggressor and all its tools and methods of war must likewise be restrained. Every war can now become the final one. but it takes our unity to make sure that aggression will not intrude again. It is not a dialogue between the so-called great Powers somewhere behind closed doors, but the open work of all nations for peace that can guarantee us all a new era of no wars.
Last year (see A/77/PV.7. annex I). I presented the outlines of the Ukrainian peace formula at the General Assembly. Later, in Indonesia. I presented the full formula. Over the past year, the peace formula has become the basis for updating the existing security architecture. We can now bring the Charter of the United Nations back to life and guarantee the full power of the rules-based world order. Tomorrow I will present the details at a special meeting of the Security Council.
The main thing is that it is not only about Ukraine. More than 140 States and international organizations have supported the Ukrainian peace formula, fully or in part. The Ukrainian peace formula is becoming global. Its points offer solutions and steps that will stop all the forms of weaponization that Russia used against Ukraine and other countries and that may be used by other aggressors. Look, for the first time in modern history, we have a real chance to end the aggression on the terms of the nation that was attacked. It is a real chance for every nation to ensure that aggression against their State, if it happens. God forbid, will end not because their land will be divided and they will be forced to submit to military or political pressure, but because their territory and sovereignty will be fully restored.
We launched the format of meetings among national security advisers and diplomatic representatives. Important talks and consultations were held in Hiroshima. Copenhagen and Jeddah on the implementation of the peace formula, and we are preparing a global peace summit. I invite all participants who do not tolerate any aggression to jointly prepare the summit.
I am aware of the attempts to make some shady dealings behind the scenes. Evil cannot be trusted. Ask Prigozhin if one can bet on Putin’s promises. I ask that Member States hear me. Let unity decide everything openly.
While Russia is pushing the world to a final war. Ukraine is doing everything to ensure that, after the Russian aggression, no one in the world will dare to attack any nation. Weaponization must be restrained; war crimes must be punished; deported people must come back home; and the occupier must return to its own land. We must be united to make that happen, and we will do it. Slava Ukraini.