Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskyy calls for ‘real peace’ in UN speech criticising plans that ‘ignore suffering of Ukrainians’ | Ukraine

A Russian guided-bomb strike on Ukraine’s eastern city of Kramatorsk on Wednesday killed at least two people and injured 12 more, including three children, according to Vadym Filashkin, the Donetsk region governor.

Russian troops used three highly destructive bombs in the attack on the town’s centre that damaged two apartment blocks, shops and cars, Filashkin posted to Telegram, according to Reuters. He wrote:

This is another war crime of the Russians and another sad reminder that there are no absolutely safe places left in the Donetsk region.

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, has posted to X to say that “there are no alternatives” to the peace formula put forward by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

He added that Zelenksyy, in his address to the UN general assembly today, “drew the world’s attention to the threats of Russian aggression and the need of unity, not division”.

Zelenskyy says that nearly 100 nations and international organisations have supported the peace formula that he has proposed, including countries that have “gone through wars themselves, and those accustomed to peace are all were equal”.

The Ukrainian president says he has met with leaders from across the world during this UN general assembly summit, and that they all “share the same understanding”. “It must be a real, just peace,” Zelenskyy says.

He says that unfortunately it is “impossible” to resolve matters of war at the UN because too much depends in the UN’s security council on member’s veto power.

When the aggressor exercises veto power, the UN is powerless to stop the war. But the peace formula … there is no veto power in it. That’s why it’s the best opportunity for peace.

Zelenskyy says other proposals put forward by other countries not only “ignore the interests and suffering of Ukrainians who are affected by the war the most” but that they also ignore reality and give Vladimir Putin the “political space to continue the war”.

He says “maybe somebody wants a Nobel Prize instead of real peace” for parallel or alternative attempts to put forward settlement plans, “but the only prizes Putin will give you in return are more suffering and disasters.”

Zelenskyy says it is the Ukrainian people who are suffering the consequences of Russia’s war – it is Ukrainian children who are “learning to distinguish the sounds of different types of artillery and drone”.

It is the Ukrainian people who are forcefully separated because Vladimir Putin “decided he could do whatever he wants”.

He says that every world leader who supports Ukraine understands how Russia wants more territory, “which is insane”, and is working to seize more land “while wanting to destroy its neighbour”. Zelenskyy says:

That’s why we say there can be no just peace without Ukraine.

Zelenskyy says every neighbour country of Russia in Europe and central Asia knows that “the war will come to them as well”.

Zelenskyy says the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, is looking for ways to “break the Ukrainian spirit”, including by targeting his country’s energy infrastructure with deliberate Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power plants and entire energy grid.

Russia has destroyed all our thermal power plants and a large part of our hydroelectric capacity. This is how Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians … Putin wants to leave them in the dark and [force] Ukraine to suffer and surrender.

The Ukrainian president says he has recently received a report that Putin plans to attack the country’s nuclear power plants and infrastructure.

Zelenskyy warns that any missile or drone strike or any critical incident in Ukraine’s energy system could lead to a “nuclear disaster”, adding:

A day like that must never come … These are nuclear power plants. They must be safe.

He adds that if “God forbid, Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants, radiation will not respect state borders.”

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has begun his address to the UN general assembly in New York. He begins by speaking about the day Russian tanks fired directly at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The Russian army stormed the plant “brutally” and without thinking about the potentially “disastrous” consequences. It was “one of the most horrifying moments of the war”, Zelenskyy says.

Zelenskyy says this is why nuclear safety plays a key part of the peace formula that he presented. “Most in the world understand what’s at stake,” he says.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is shortly due to address the UN general assembly. He is expected to seek support for Ukraine in the war against Russia, and to present his “victory plan” – a roadmap for Ukraine to end the war with greater western backing.

In a forceful speech to the UN security council on Tuesday, Zelenskyy called on a broad alliance of nations to “force Russia into peace”, saying that Vladimir Putin has violated the foundations of the UN and that the war “can’t be conquered by talks” alone.

Zelenskyy accused Moscow of committing “international crimes” by targeting Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, and claimed he had proof that Putin is plotting to target three Ukrainian nuclear power plants to further degrade the country’s energy grid.

In his speech, he added that further pressure was needed to conclude peace with Russia after it had been “doing things that cannot possibly be justified under the UN charter”.

He has repeatedly called on the US and UK to drop their restrictions on the use of long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia, despite concerns in the Biden administration that those attacks could lead to further escalation of the war.