Early on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stunning and desperate address to his people.
The Kremlin would be forcefully conscripting 300,000 citizens into mandatory military service in Ukraine – a force significantly larger than that which had originally invaded the sovereign neighboring nation.
Also, Putin made it clear that any attack on Russian soil, (some of which he’ll be amending in sham referendums later this week), could be grounds for a nuclear strike. He added that he’s “not bluffing”, but the mere mention of the word often belies reality.
Just hours later, at the United Nations in New York, US President Joe Biden put Putin back in his place.
President Biden denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, telling world leaders that the very basis of the organization’s charter is under assault.
“As we meet today, the U.N. charter’s very basis of a stable and just, rule-based order is under attack by those who wish to tear it down or distort it for their own political advantage,” Mr. Biden said in his second address to the assembly as president. “And the United Nations’ charter was not only signed by democracies of the world. It was negotiated among citizens, dozens of nations, with vastly different histories and ideologies, united in their commitment to work for peace.”
Addressing the war in Ukraine, now in its seventh month, the president said Putin “claims he had to act because Russia was threatened, but no one threatened Russia, and no one other than Russia sought conflict.”
And then:
“Let us speak plainly: A permanent member of the U.N. Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map,” Mr. Biden said. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenants of the United Nations charter, no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.”
Given the Russian military’s complete and utter ineptitude in Ukraine, there’s no telling how many months it could take to equip and train 300,000 new soldiers, or if the Kremlin’s decision will spark mass unrest in Moscow and beyond.
