Russian President Vladimir Putin Mikhail Svetlov/Getty
Things got heated at the United Nations on Saturday during a meeting of the Security Council marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski rebuked a Russian ambassador for lying about the state of the war, Ukraine’s leadership, and the threat Russia poses to the region.
In a powerful four-minute speech, Sikorski offered a “useful” correction of the record. “Ambassador [Vasily] Nebenzya has called Kyiv the clients of the West,” Sikorski said. “Actually, Kyiv is fighting to be independent of anybody. He calls them a criminal Kyiv regime. In fact, Ukraine has a democratically elected government. He calls them Nazis. Well, the president is Jewish. The defense minister is Muslim, and they have no political prisoners. He said that Ukraine was wallowing in corruption. Well, Aleksei Navalny documented how honest and full of probity his own country is.”
That sardonic beat about Navalny was especially poignant after the Russian opposition leader’s death in a Russian prison in mid-February, for which the Biden administration blames the Kremlin.
Sikorski went on: “He said that we are prisoners of Russophobia,” Sikorski continued. “‘Phobia’ means irrational fear. Yet we are being threatened almost every day by the former president of Russia and by Putin propagandists with nuclear annihilation. I put to you that it’s not irrational. When Russia threatens us, we trust it.”
He concluded with a challenge to Russia’s military prowess: “[Nebenzya] is saying that we, the West, are somehow trying to persuade that Russia can never be beaten. Well, Russia didn’t win the Crimean War, it didn’t win the Russo-Japanese war, it didn’t win World War I, it didn’t win the Battle of Warsaw, it didn’t win in Afghanistan, and it didn’t win the Cold War.”
“They failed to subjugate us then. They will fail to subjugate Ukraine, and us, now.”
The full speech is worth your time. Watch it below:
