Nuclear attack fear as Putin accused of 'pushing the world to the final war'

19 September 2023 , 19:16

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a stark warning at the UN General Assembly (Image: AP)

Volodymyr Zelensky tonight accused Russia of “pushing the world to the final war” as he raised fears about a nuclear attack.

In a 14-minute address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Ukrainian President claimed Moscow was weaponising everything from food to energy to children in its war against his country. “The 20th Century taught the world to restrain from the use of the weapons of mass destruction, not to deploy, not to proliferate, not threaten with and not to test, but to promote a complete nuclear disarmament,” he said. “Frankly, this is a good strategy but it should not be the only strategy to protect the world from the final war.”

He told how Kyiv surrendered its nuclear arsenal at the end of the Cold War after receiving Western security guarantees. But world leaders “then decided Russia should become a keeper of such power”. “History shows it was Russia who deserved nuclear disarmament the most back in the 1990s - and Russia deserves it now,” said Mr Zelensky, speaking in English and wearing his trademark green khaki. “Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons, no right.”

He said the Kremlin’s militarisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in eastern Ukraine had effectively turned the energy plant into a “dirty bomb”. Issuing a rallying cry, Mr Zelensky added: “While Russia is pushing the world to the final war, Ukraine is doing everything to ensure that after Russian aggression, no-one in the world will dare to attack any nation. Weaponisation must be restrained, war crimes must be punished, deported people must come back home and the occupier must return to their own land.”

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