Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to address the UN Security Council this Wednesday, September 20, facing permanent member Russia. This is the first time since the start of the invasion that he will face Russia at the UN, speaking in person before the Security Council, a body which moreover is paralyzed on this subject due to the Russian veto.
While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is bogged down, the Ukrainian president continues his diplomatic offensive in New York where the major world leaders are gathered, in the notable absence of China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Russia will be represented by its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who arrived in New York on Tuesday evening, but he could nevertheless be represented during Zelensky’s speech, which will be one of the first of the day. The United States and France will respectively be represented by Antony Blinken and Catherine Colonna.
Zelensky calls for a “peace summit”
Tuesday at La Tribune of the UN General Assembly, the Ukrainian president dressed in his usual military fatigues accused Russia of committing a “genocide”, trying to rally to his cause countries of the South, sometimes skeptical in their saying that they too had an interest in Kiev’s victory. “For the first time in modern history, we have the opportunity to put an end to this aggression on the terms of the attacked country,” he said, inviting world leaders opposed to Russian aggression to help prepare “a peace summit”.
He also accused Moscow of using food and energy “as weapons and said that Russia had “no right to possess nuclear weapons.” “Russia uses the price of food and nuclear energy as a weapon”, he said from the podium, where he was applauded for a long time.
Erdogan wants to “intensify” peace efforts
Faced with the cascading impacts of the war, particularly on food security, more and more countries in the South are pleading more and more openly for a diplomatic solution. Tuesday at the UN, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for “intensifying” peace efforts. “Since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, we have tried to keep our Russian and Ukrainian friends around the table, with the idea that the war will have no winners and peace no losers,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the United Nations.
Russia shoots down 4 drones
Russia said on Wednesday it had destroyed four Ukrainian drones overnight over the regions of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, and Orel, also in the west, in three separate attacks. The ministry has not provided information on possible damage or casualties at this stage.
On Sunday evening, Russia had already announced that it had shot down 4 Ukrainian drones in this region of western Belgorod, as well as in the southwest of annexed Crimea.
Ukrainian attacks of this type against Russian territory, whether its capital Moscow, the border areas of Ukraine or the annexed Crimean peninsula, have increased in recent months against the backdrop of a counter- Kiev offensive started in early June.
Nine civilians killed in Ukraine
At least nine civilians were killed Tuesday in Russian strikes across Ukraine, six in Kupiansk (east), two in Kherson (south) and one in Lviv (west), according to a new report provided by Ukrainian authorities. At least six people died in the town of Kupiansk, located in the Kharkiv region (north-east), about ten kilometers from the front line, Governor Oleg Synegoubov announced early in the evening.
Three had already been killed earlier in the day in an attack using a “guided aerial bomb”. Rescuers are “continuing” to search the site, the governor added, suggesting that the toll could rise further.
Russian Defense Minister in Iran
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in Iran on Tuesday for an official visit, an “important step” for military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, which is accused of supplying it with drones for its offensive in Ukraine. This trip “will contribute to strengthening Russian-Iranian military ties and will mark an important step in the development of cooperation between the two countries,” said the ministry, quoted by Russian news agencies.
In Tehran, Sergei Shoigu met with the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, reported the local Mehr news agency. “The development of defense diplomacy” and the “expanding of bilateral cooperation”, as well as the “management of common threats” are on the menu of the two officials’ discussions, according to the official Irna agency. Iran is accused by the West of delivering large quantities of drones, particularly explosives, to the Russian army to help it in its assault on Ukraine, which Tehran denies.
Moscow and Tehran are subject to international sanctions which restrict trade. Over the past year, they have forged close ties in several sectors, including military and energy cooperation. In March, Iran announced that a deal had been reached to purchase Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia. Enough to make the United States say in May that the two countries were “expanding their defense partnership”. Since the start of the year, Iran has been very active on the diplomatic scene with the ambition of reducing its isolation by becoming more closely linked to Russia and China, and by reconciling with its Arab neighbors.