Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “Patient Zero” for a conflict that could spread across Europe and beyond.
Zelensky began by portraying the damage sustained by Russia’s diesel fuel industry during the war as a tremendous humiliation for a fading world power that holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
“Russia messed up,” he said, and then quoted from an article about the collapse of Russian fuel: “This ridiculous and never-ending war with Ukraine must be ended.”
“I do not know a single world leader who would say otherwise,” Zelensky said. “I do not know anyone who is openly for this war – except one man.”
“For almost five years now, Russian generals have been trying to carry out Putin’s crazy order to seize our distant land, the Donetsk region. And just this year, from January through August, the Russian army lost 248,964 people on the battlefield in Ukraine, in eight months,” he said.
“248,000 killed and badly wounded,” he marveled. “21 countries in the world have smaller populations than the number of Russian troops lost in just eight months.”
“It’s madness, but they still keep going there to die, because that is what Putin wants,” he said. “After losing so many people, Russia managed to capture just over 1,000 square kilometers of our land this year, and we have already liberated a significant part of it.”
“Does anyone still think that he’s reasonable and moderate?” Zelensky said of Putin.
Zelensky noted that North Korea has already sent soldiers to die for Putin in Ukraine, accusing dictator Kim Jong-un of using the lives of his own people “like currency” to buy “improved ballistic missiles and drone capability” from Moscow.
Zelensky feared more countries would be drawn into the spreading conflict as Putin grows more desperate, and some would be malevolent regimes like North Korea that would grow more dangerous with help from Russia. Later in his speech, he said Ukraine has captured citizens from many other countries fighting in Russia’s army, including nations across Asia and Africa.
“You know what Russia is doing to your people,” he said to the leaders of the 47 other countries from which Moscow has recruited troops. “It’s you, your citizens. Take care of them, and do not let them end up on another front. Do not let Putin drag you into this war. Do not let Russia put out its fires, cover up its shame, and pay for its madness with the lives of your people. Limit his room to act. Limit his money. Limit his war.”
Zelensky noted that despite Putin’s inability to conquer more than a small frontier of Ukrainian territory after expending hundreds of thousands of lives, he still has dreams of seizing entire cities from Ukraine – and even beyond Ukraine’s borders.
“Russia has claims against our neighbor Moldova. It constantly threatens Poland and the Baltic states. Russia shows no respect for the statehood of the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. And, sadly, people in Syria and across Africa also know very well what Russian killers are,” he said.
“Putin is always looking for someone who can help him kill more people for every kilometer of land, take more territory, take another country, instead of simply stopping and running his own country,” he warned.
“After all of this, can you even imagine him without war?” Zelensky asked, “He’s Patient Zero. His idea of war keeps spreading further and further, and wherever it spreads, it brings only pain, instability, new risks, and of course new crises.”
“The more freedom Putin has to act, the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else,” he declared. “That is why Patient Zero must be stopped. He must be denied the space to act, and the space to spread this evil further.”
Zelensky said Ukraine is attacking Russia’s prized fuel industry to cut off Putin’s ability to finance his war. He expressed gratitude to the nations that have stood by Ukraine and contributed to starving the Russian war machine with sanctions, as well as helping Ukraine to bolster its defenses by contributing weapons and money.
“Russia’s readiness must remain a target,” he said. “Russia’s deficit is now bigger than in any other year, and most Russian regions are already bankrupt. Russia planned major operations on the front this summer — all of them failed. Russia’s bet on cruise missiles and Shaheds [drones from Iran] didn’t work the way Putin planned. They still caused damage, but they didn’t break us.”
Zelensky lamented the threat from Russia’s new jet-powered drones and called out Iran for helping Russia to refine the technology, which now threatens Ukrainian lives almost “every hour.” He applauded Ukrainian engineers, and their partners from allied countries, for quickly devising cost-effective countermeasures to the latest Russian missiles and drones, and said he was happy to share those defensive technologies with the free world.
“Today, even the richest countries in the world can’t find enough missile interceptors. Current production is simply not enough, and even those who spent years building up interceptor stocks have already used a large part of them,” he noted.
Zelensky offered Ukraine’s expertise to help improve the drone and missile defenses of other nations, especially those who currently feel they are not wealthy or advanced enough to field the best defenses. He mentioned development deals for drone protection he has signed with “partners in the Gulf, the South Caucasus, and across Europe,” most recently including a “serious drone deal” with Finland and a new “security arrangement” with Australia.
“Ukraine has proven that, even against a much bigger enemy, you can stand and survive,” he said, promoting the idea of “peace through protection” by refining defense technologies to “reduce the space for starting and spreading wars in the world.”
Zelensky hoped Russia’s grueling battlefield losses and economic damage would create a new opportunity for diplomacy.
“Yesterday, we met with the President of the United States, and this is exactly what we discussed,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we have not had a chance to speak directly with the leader of China, who is in America today, but not here,” he added. “He is someone who can influence Russia too, more than many, many others can. And we would like him to want peace as much as we do in Ukraine.”
On the other hand, Zelensky expressed concerns that the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) could tip the scales back in favor of aggression, and “begin to decide what happens on the battlefield.”
“We need peace before we reach that point,” he said.
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