António Guterres was speaking at a ministerial meeting on Friday (24 Feb), in New York, to mark the one year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The UN Secretary-General warned the Security Council that “veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the context of the conflict have spiked nuclear risks to levels not seen since the darkest days of the Cold War” and declared that “these threats are unacceptable.”

The UN chief said that “the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international law” and “it has unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement.”
Guterres said that “attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have caused many casualties and terrible suffering” and noted that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has “documented dozens of cases of conflict-related sexual violence against men, women and girls.”
According to the UN Secretary-General, “life is a living hell for the people of Ukraine.”
Guterres remembered that an estimated 17.6 million people — nearly 40 per cent of the population of Ukraine — require humanitarian assistance and protection and the crisis has erased 30 per cent of pre-war jobs. The World Food Programme estimates that nearly 40 per cent of Ukrainians are unable to afford or access enough food.
The UN chief added, “The war has sparked a displacement crisis not seen in Europe in decades.”
Guterres noted that “over the past year, this Council has held more than forty debates on Ukraine” and “the guns are talking now, but in the end we all know that the path of diplomacy and accountability is the road to a just and sustainable peace.”
The Secretary-General urged, “We must prevent further escalation. We must all encourage every meaningful effort to end the bloodshed and, at long last, give peace a chance.”

Dmytro Kuleba, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, told Council members that “Ukraine will resist as it has done so far, and Ukraine will win.”
Kuleba added, “Putin is going to lose much sooner than he thinks.”
The Ukrainian minister also listed “what Russian officials and servicemen have to know.”
“You think you would get away with what you did? No, you will end up on trial. You will be testifying how strongly you disagreed with the aggression and you just followed orders. You think that the world will get tired of supporting Ukraine? The support will only grow stronger. You think that Ukraine will eventually tire of defending itself? The more and the longer you will keep attacking Ukraine, the more resolve we will have and the more humiliating your defeat will be,” detailed Kuleba.
The government official told Council members that “Russian propaganda has fabricated this hypocritical narrative that supplying Ukraine with weapons fuels the war” but, in fact, “Ukraine indeed needs weapons, just as a firefighter needs water to extinguish a fire.”
“The fire that is destroying your home and killing innocent people. The sooner and the more we get, the sooner the fire will be extinguished,” argued Kuleba.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs also asked the Council to “observe a minute of silence in memory of victims of Russian aggression.”

The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, remembered that one year and one week ago, he warned the Council of Russia’s invasion.
Since then, he said “no member of this Council should call for peace while supporting Russia's war in Ukraine and on the UN Charter.”
Blinked added. “In this war, there is an aggressor and there was a victim. Russia fights for conquest. Ukraine fights for freedom. If Russia stops finding and leaves Ukraine, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. The fact remains: one man, Vladimir Putin, started this war, and one man can end it.”

Representing the United Kingdom, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, James Cleverly, said that “over the past year, Putin has shown that he is willing to wage a war of attrition.”
According to Cleverly, “two 20th century world wars have shown us what a horror that would be.”
For Cleverly, that would mean “hundreds of thousands more dead and global shortages of food and fuel and skyrocketing prices.”
“For these reasons, and many more, Putin cannot and must not win in Ukraine,” concluded the Secretary of State of the UK.

Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative of Russia, said that the international community knows “for a fact” that western nations “prevented the Kyiv regime from making peace in April of last year.”
For the Russian ambassador, “western colleagues, currently, are happy with everything.”
Nebenzya argued, “The Russians and Ukrainians are killing each other, the western defence companies are getting fabulous profits and have a platform for testing new weaponry, NATO is getting rid of its old weapons and is rearming, and Washington is weaking its European competitors, who are displaying unseen servility and impotence, something we talked about at length yesterday.”

Dai Bing, Chargé d'affaires of China’s Mission to the United Nations, noted that “some countries, while stressing sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Ukraine issue, are blatantly interfering in other countries internal affairs and undermining their sovereignty and territorial integrity, leaving their double standard on full display.”