Ukraine’s Poroshenko bashes Russia at UN General Assembly

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has used his speech at the UN General Assembly to once again accuse Moscow of aggression against his country and urge other UN members to limit Russia’s veto power at the Security Council.

Ukraine has become “an object of external aggression. The aggressor is the Russian Federation,” Poroshenko said as he addressed international leaders at the 70th United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian president said that assigning Russia a place at the UN Security Council (UNSC) as a successor to the USSR was a "questionable procedure."

"Ukraine stands for the gradual limitation of [its] veto right with its further cancellation," he said in English.

Poroshenko expressed his belief that the UN Security Council should be reformed to “reflect the realities of the 21st century.”

He said that a larger quantity of African, Asian and Latin American states should be represented at the UNSC, while an "additional non-permanent seat in the Council should be given to the Eastern European Group (EEG) of countries – its composition has doubled during the last two decades."

Poroshenko also repeated his calls for a peacekeeping operation in Donbass region in southeastern Ukraine, where a military conflict between rebels and central government forces began in April 2014. 

“The special peacekeeping mission in Donbass under UN auspices could become a very useful instrument contributing to implementation of the Minsk agreements. We demand the same approach from other signatories,” he said.

According to the president, Ukraine’s contribution “to the maintenance of international peace and security provides us with moral grounds to count on the same assistance from the Organization [the UN].” 

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Poroshenko also proposed the convening of a special session of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.

The Russian delegation wasn’t present as Poroshenko made his accusations, which were not backed by any proof.

Ukraine’s team made a show of leaving the hall UNGA during Vladimir Putin’s speech at the UN on Monday.

The Russian president said that he did not notice Poroshenko’s absence while speaking.

"It’s not really important to me, for everyone to be present without exception, especially those that do not find it interesting," Putin said.

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Media and legal analyst, Lionel, told RT that Poroshenko chose to speak English instead of his native Ukrainian at the UN to achieve more “clarity” as his address was aimed at two audiences – the international community and the mainstream media in the US.

“The question that we have to ask is if anything that was stated a surprise? And the answer to that was simply ‘no’. I don’t think that anybody was surprised by the allegations that were made,” Lionel stressed.

Famous Slovenian philosopher, Slavoy Zizek, also noticed some “ambiguity” in Poroshenko’s address.

“He wants to be, at the same time, perceived by the West as an open, democratic, pluralist and so on. And of course, at the same time, at a certain different level, he plays a hardline Ukrainian nationalist,” Zizek told RT.

As for the possibility of depriving Russia of its veto power at the Security Council, the philosopher stressed “that power of the UN resides precisely in the fact that there’s a place for everyone in it – if we don’t agree with a great power, it’s not thrown out.”