In New York, Zelensky blasts U.N. inaction
What happened
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky implored world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week to support his nation’s fight against Russia, saying assistance was in their own self-interest. Moscow, he said in his first in-person speech to the global body since the February 2022 invasion, was blocking Ukrainian food exports in an effort “to turn our lands, our people, our resources into a weapon against you, against the international rules-based order.” In his Security Council address, Zelensky sharply criticized the U.N., saying it must rescind Russia’s veto power over U.N. resolutions or lose credibility as an international arbiter. It’s impossible to stop a war, he said, when “all actions are vetoed by the aggressor.” In his own U.N. address, President Biden, too, said support for Kyiv should be a global imperative. “If we allow Ukraine to be carved up,” he said, “is the independence of any nation secure?”
After his address, Zelensky headed to Washington to meet with Biden at the White House and to beseech congressional leaders for additional funds. Since the invasion, the U.S. has allocated over $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, and U.S. Abrams tanks are even now on their way to the stalled front lines. Hard-line House Republicans, though, are threatening a government shutdown that could interrupt delivery of weapons already approved, and they remain opposed to additional aid. “There’s no money in the House right now for Ukraine,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). “It’s not a good time for him to be here, quite frankly.”
What the columnists said
Zelensky “has been treated like a rock star in the West,” said Daniel DePetris in the Chicago Tribune, but he’s “never been able to garner similar appeal in the capital cities of Africa, Latin America, and Asia.” Many nations in the Global South have historic ties to Russia and rely on it now for food supplies, and they “can’t afford to cut off a major power to make a moral point.” Their careful neutrality in the war may seem “unethical” to Zelensky, but national interests “trump values.”
Zelensky is right—the U.N. is becoming “irrelevant,” said Jim Geraghty in National Review. No wonder leaders of major powers, including China, France, and the U.K., “decided to be somewhere else” this week rather than at the annual summit. The U.N. can’t order Vladimir Putin to withdraw; it can merely mediate between warring parties. But Ukraine rightly insists that the time for talks won’t begin until the last Russian soldier has returned home in defeat.
Such an outcome is squarely in American interests, said Mark Temnycky in The Hill. Letting Russia conquer a European democracy is not an option. House Republicans may balk at the price tag, but aid to Ukraine is a fraction of the $817 billion we spend on defense each year. Zelensky has been clear that Ukrainians “will do all the work on the ground to defend their country,” putting their own lives on the line. All we have to do is help arm them. That’s “a very worthwhile investment.”