“We can not — we is not going to — permit President Putin to get away with it,” Blinken mentioned in remarks on the assembly Thursday, held in the course of the UN Normal Meeting’s excessive stage week.
The assembly got here amid per week of escalatory actions by Moscow, together with a mobilization order for a whole bunch of hundreds of troops and deliberate “sham referenda” in Russian-occupied elements of Ukraine.
“That President Putin picked this week, as a lot of the world gathers on the United Nations, so as to add gasoline to the hearth he began reveals his utter contempt and disdain for the UN Constitution, the UN Normal Meeting, and this Council,” Blinken mentioned.
Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov was absent from the chamber for all however his personal remarks, during which he dismissed the widespread worldwide condemnation and once more blamed Kyiv for Moscow’s invasion. A number of officers prompt the highest Russian diplomat left the room as a result of he didn’t wish to hear the condemnations.
A senior US State Division official instructed reporters on Thursday that “Russia actually felt the new breath of world opinion” on the assembly.
“I do not assume that there was anyone in that room throughout the Safety Council from (Chinese language Overseas Minister) Wang Yi to Tony Blinken who gave Vladimir Putin or Lavrov a shred of consolation. Everyone mentioned this warfare has to finish,” the official mentioned.
The official famous that Lavrov “didn’t seem till two minutes earlier than his personal speech — he had one in all his minions hear, to the extent they have been listening — after which he left you understand inside a minute and a half of talking.”
They mentioned that the Russian official who sat within the chamber for a lot of the assembly — Deputy Overseas Minister Sergey Vershinin — and his workforce “have been just about stone confronted all through.”
Nevertheless, “there have been faces of incredulity all the best way across the desk when (Lavrov) began re-litigating 2014 and calling the Ukrainians Nazis and doing the basic Putin mirror-imaging, accusing the remainder of the world of all the things that Russia itself is doing, together with atrocities and human rights abuses, I imply, it was simply ‘Alice By means of the Trying Glass,'” they mentioned.
Blinken and others, together with UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres, highlighted the atrocities uncovered in Ukraine, the worldwide impacts of the warfare on issues like meals safety, and known as on Russia to stop its nuclear saber rattling.
The highest US diplomat mentioned Vladimir Putin’s menace to make use of “all weapon programs accessible” to Russia is “all of the extra menacing given Russia’s intention to annex giant swaths of Ukraine within the days forward.”
“When that is full, we are able to anticipate President Putin will declare any Ukrainian effort to liberate this land as an assault on so-called Russian territory,” Blinken defined. “This from a rustic that, in January of this 12 months, on this place, joined the opposite everlasting members of the Safety Council in signing a press release affirming that, and I quote, ‘nuclear warfare can by no means be gained and must not ever be fought.’ Yet one more instance of how Russia violates the commitments it has made earlier than this physique, and but one more reason why no person ought to take Russia at its phrase right this moment.”
“Each Council member ought to ship a transparent message that these reckless nuclear threats should cease instantly,” he mentioned.
Blinken mentioned Russia’s efforts to annex extra Ukrainian territory — which US officers say is the anticipated subsequent step following the referenda known as this week by Russian-backed leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk Individuals’s Republics, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — are “one other harmful escalation and repudiation of diplomacy.”
“It’s much more alarming when coupled with the filtration operations that Russian forces have been finishing up throughout the elements of Ukraine they management,” Blinken mentioned. “It is a diabolical technique: violently uproot a whole bunch of hundreds of Ukrainians; bus in Russians to interchange them; name a vote; and manipulate the outcomes to indicate close to unanimous help for becoming a member of the Russian Federation. Proper out of the Crimea playbook.”
He once more known as for accountability for the crimes uncovered in previously Russian-occupied elements of Ukraine like Bucha, Irpin, Izyum, the place mass graves have been found and survivors have recounted acts of torture.
“These usually are not the acts of rogue models; they match a transparent sample throughout the territory managed by Russian forces,” Blinken mentioned. “This is without doubt one of the many causes we help a variety of nationwide and worldwide efforts to gather and look at the mounting proof of warfare crimes in Ukraine.”
Blinken reiterated that the US would proceed to help Ukraine and known as on others to do the identical.
“President Putin is making his selection. Now it is as much as all of our international locations to make ours. Inform President Putin to cease the horror he began. Inform him to cease placing his pursuits above the pursuits of the remainder of the world, together with his personal individuals. Inform him to cease debasing this Council and all the things it stands for,” Blinken mentioned.
“One man selected this warfare. And one man can finish it,” he mentioned. “As a result of if Russia stops preventing, the warfare ends. If Ukraine stops preventing, Ukraine ends.”
This story has been up to date with further particulars.
CNN’s Jenny Hansler contributed to this report.
