Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed Tuesday to the UN Security Council to urgently adopt sweeping internal reforms after he suggested the body is incapable of achieving its principal objective.
Addressing the Council directly, Zelenskyy asked the body that is charged with ensuring international peace and security if it believes the time of international law "is gone," and demanded action if it is not.
"Where is the security that the Security Council needs to guarantee? It's not there, although there is a Security Council," he asked amid Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine. "And so, where is the peace?"
Zelenskyy was speaking in the wake of shocking photos and videos that appear to show brutal killings of civilians outside of Kyiv in areas formerly occupied by Russian forces. Russia withdrew from the area around March 30.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow are facing vehement criticism from the international community after Ukraine accused Russian forces of committing “genocide” and “war crimes” in Bucha.
Russia has rejected the allegations as a “fake news attack,” arguing that images of dead bodies and footage of slain civilians that have drawn global outrage were staged after Russian forces withdrew from the city.
An investigation from the New York Times based on the examination of satellite photos challenged the denial, however, suggesting that many of the bodies seen in the streets of Bucha had been there for weeks.
In the wake of the startling visuals, the US is set to soon call a vote within the UN General Assembly on expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council (HRC). A member can be removed from the HRC following a two-thirds vote within the General Assembly if a state is found to have engaged in a pattern of gross and systemic abuses.
Zelenskyy urged the Security Council to immediately adopt internal reforms, specifically to remove the veto power of the permanent five members, which include Russia, "so that the veto is not the right to die," and to ensure "fair representation."
“It is now clear that the goals set in San Francisco in 1945 for the creation of a global security international organization have not been achieved, and it is impossible to achieve them without reforms,” he said, referring to the creation of the UN Charter.
"Therefore, we must do everything in our power to pass on to the next generation an effective UN with the ability to respond preventively to security challenges and thus guarantee peace, prevent aggression and force aggressors to peace," he added.
Zelenskyy played a video of still images of what appear to be dead civilians in several Ukrainian cities and towns, including Motyzhyn, Irpin, Dymerka, Mariupol and Bucha. Many of the bodies were burned. Others appeared to be kneeling on the ground before being killed, their arms bound behind their backs. Some were simply left in the streets.
"Russia wants to turn Ukraine into silent slaves," he said, alleging that Russia is forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainians to Russia while simultaneously carrying out mass slaughter in Ukraine.
"We are dealing with a state that is turning the veto in the UN Security Council into the right to die. This undermines the whole architecture of global security," he added.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, which started on Feb. 24, has met international outrage, with the European Union, US, and UK, among others, implementing tough sanctions on Moscow.
At least 1,480 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 2,195 injured, according to UN estimates, with the true figure feared to be far higher.
More than 4.21 million Ukrainians have also fled to other countries, with about 7 million more internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency.
