Guterres at the UN Security Council: "Give peace a chance"

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of the UN Charter and international law." This was reiterated by the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, opening the Security Council. "The aims and principles of the UN Charter are not a matter of convenience, they are not just words, but they are at the heart of who we are and reflect the leading mission of the United Nations," he added, recalling that a year ago he had asked to give peace a chance, "but peace had no chance."

"The guns are talking now, but in the end we all know that the path of diplomacy and responsibility is the path to a just and sustainable peace. A peace in line with the Charter of the United Nations and international law". "We must prevent further escalation, we must all encourage any meaningful effort to end the bloodshed and, finally, give peace a chance," Guterres added.

"Life is hell for the Ukrainian people. An estimated 17.6 million people – almost 40% of the population – are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, 30% of pre-war jobs have been wiped out. And the war has sparked a displacement crisis not seen in Europe for decades, with more than 8 million registered Ukrainian refugees across Europe, as well as some 5.4 million internally displaced people," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, adding that more than half of Ukrainian children have been forced to flee their homes.

"Ukraine will resist as it has done so far, Ukraine will win, and Putin will lose sooner than you think." This was stated by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in the UN Security Council, calling for "joint and rapid action".

"In the short term, Ukraine must re-establish its sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. In the long term, justice must be served," said the Kiev Foreign Minister, who then "reiterated the request to establish a special tribunal for Russian aggression in Ukraine."

"The longer you continue to attack us, the more determined we will be to resist and the more humiliating will be the defeat" of Russia.

The UN Security Council for the meeting on Ukraine also experienced moments of tension. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia took the floor criticizing the fact that the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, spoke immediately after Secretary-General Guterres' speech, before the members of the Council. "We have nothing against Ukraine intervening, but after the members of the Security Council," he added. The Maltese presidency explained that since the meeting is on the occasion of the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine "we considered it right to give the floor first" to Kiev.

The UN Security Council observed two separate minutes of silence, the first at the proposal of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, for his country's victims and the second at the request of the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, for those of Russia in Ukraine since 2014.

At the end of his speech, Kiev's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, asked for a minute's silence. The ministers and ambassadors gathered around the table stood up, but the Russian ambassador to the UN headquarters, Vasily Nebenya, interrupted them by tapping on the microphone to ask for the floor. And, to the embarrassment of those present, the diplomat, who had remained seated, says: "We stand up to honor the memory of all the victims of what has happened in Ukraine, starting in 2014. Of all those who died. All lives have a price." Then Nebenya gestures to hesitant ministers and ambassadors to stand up to observe the minute's silence.

The Chinese one "is not a peace plan, it is a document of intentions, where Beijing illustrates all its positions that are known from the beginning". This was stated by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the EU, Josep Borrell, at the UN. "To be a peace plan it should be a text that can be implemented," he added, and "to be credible it must be shared with both sides: China must go to Kiev and talk to Zelensky as he spoke to Putin. It also cannot put aggressor and assaulted on the same level."