https://ift.tt/xhmIM5w the U.N. General Assembly Friday, leaders from all corners of the world continued to call for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and many condemned President Vladimir Putin’s threat of using nuclear weapons.
“Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine – a scourge that reflects a brutal mentality of conquest and empire,” said Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama of the tiny island nation of Fiji. “No matter their might, no matter their size, Fiji is unafraid to condemn any warring nation.”
“We in the Pacific, who have lived the horror of nuclear fallout, wholly denounce Mr. Putin’s threatened use of nuclear weapons,” he added.
“What country who claims to be a liberator, threatens to annihilate the very civilians they claim to liberate?” asked New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden of Putin’s nuclear weapons threats. “This war is based on a lie.”
The prime minister of Saint Lucia, in the Caribbean, said the war in Ukraine has unleashed not just death and horrors, but has plunged the world into economic, food and fuel crises.
“The world could have been spared this humanitarian and economic agony, if once again countries and their leaders had respected and adhered to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” Philip Pierre said.
Russia will have its opportunity to address the international community Saturday, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov takes the podium.
At a meeting about the situation in Ukraine on Thursday in the U.N. Security Council, Lavrov did not address the military mobilization or Putin’s nuclear threats. Of the referenda that started Friday in occupied parts of Ukraine, he said they are the consequence of “Russo-phobic” statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who he said told people who feel they are Russian to go to Russia.