By Farnaz Fassihi, Alan Yuhas and Ivan Nechepurenko
Hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine exhorted the world to stay focused on his country’s grueling war against Russia’s invasion, President Vladimir Putin of Russia escalated his threats against the West, asserting that his country should be able to deploy nuclear weapons if it was attacked by a nation supported by a nuclear power.
Zelenskyy, who spoke Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, has been lobbying heavily for permission to use Western weapons to penetrate deeper into Russian territory.
Although Putin did not mention specific countries, his remarks seemed to suggest that he considered any Western support for a conventional attack by Ukraine of Russia as a joint attack that would, under certain circumstances, merit a nuclear response.
Seeking to rally support after more than two years of war, Zelenskyy on Wednesday cast Russia as a threat to nations far beyond Ukraine. Despite Russia’s size, he said, it “still wants even more land — more land, which is insane, and is seizing it day by day while wanting to destroy its neighbor.”
Every neighboring country in Europe and Central Asia, he said, “feels that the war could come for them as well,” he said.
Zelenskyy stressed the dangers of a nuclear disaster posed by the war, noting that Russian troops still occupied one of Ukraine’s plants and warning that such a catastrophe would “not respect state borders.”
But he also argued that Ukraine was the bulwark against aggression from Russia. “It is the Ukrainian people who feel the full pain of this war,” he said. “It is Ukrainian children who are learning to distinguish the signs of different types of artillery and drones because of Russia’s war.”
And although Zelenskyy asked for support “from all nations” to help end the war, he highlighted two countries, North Korea and Iran, that have grown closer to the Kremlin. “A telling choice of friends,” Zelenskyy said.
Here’s what else to know:
— Security Council meetings: The U.N. Security Council is holding a meeting of foreign ministers and some heads of state about the challenges the council has faced in ending conflicts. The council will also hold an emergency session about Lebanon on Wednesday evening. France’s foreign minister requested that meeting after Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed more than 500 people Monday.
— Crisis in Sudan: The General Assembly hosted a side event Wednesday calling for “urgent and collective support to scale up the humanitarian response in Sudan,” according to the U.N.’s website. A ruthless civil war in the country has “unleashed one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises,” President Joe Biden said in his address Tuesday.
— Macron speaks: President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has been navigating political turmoil at home with an election and new Cabinet, told the assembly that the organization was facing a crisis of trust and hope, and that all lives — be they in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip or Sudan — were equal. “We need to show equal attention to those suffering,” he said.
— Climate change: The U.N. is hosting an all-day climate conference focused on threats posed by rising sea levels, one of the pressing issues for low-lying and small island developing countries. “We are in a climate meltdown,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in his address to the Assembly on Tuesday.
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