SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. And welcome, President Zelenskyy.
We meet more than two and a half years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, shredding the core principles of the United Nations Charter – sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence.
Every day since, Russia has waged a war of aggression – the textbook example of a threat to international peace and security that this council was created to prevent and address.
The question before us today is not what will Russia do. We already know that. Putin will continue to wage his unjust war.
The question before us is how we, members of this council, can end Putin’s war and reinforce the international rules and rights that make all of our nations safer and more secure.
There are two immediate and interrelated steps that we must take.
First, we must address Russia’s growing cooperation with North Korea and Iran.
Iran has been providing armed drones to the Kremlin since 2022. It built a drone factory in Russia. Just a few weeks ago, it transferred hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, and Tehran has trained Russian military personnel in Iran how to operate these weapons.
Meanwhile, the DPRK has delivered trainloads of weapons and ammunition to Russia, including ballistic missiles, launchers, and millions of artillery rounds.
Support from Tehran and Pyongyang is helping Putin inflict carnage, suffering, and ruin on innocent Ukrainian men, women, and children; demolish Ukrainian apartment buildings, grain silos, and ports; ravage Ukrainian power plants, heating, and natural gas facilities just as freezing temperatures are setting in.
These actions by Iran, North Korea, and Russia have violated multiple Security Council resolutions – resolutions that Russia voted for, and as a permanent member, has a special responsibility to enforce.
This is also not a one-way street.
The more Russia relies on their support, the more Iran and North Korea extract in return.
And the more Putin gives to Pyongyang and Tehran, the more he exacerbates threats to peace and security – not just in Europe, but in the Indo-Pacific, in the Middle East, all around the globe.
As North Korea ramps up its military support for Russia, Putin has reciprocated with military commitments and with money.
The two countries recently revived a treaty pledging to provide military assistance if either is invaded. In March, Russia used its veto to end the work of the UN Panel of Experts on the DPRK, which for 14 years had monitored the regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Russia’s banks are helping North Korea evade sanctions, freeing up more funds for its unlawful weapons programs.
All this for a regime that has carried out more than 150 ballistic missile tests since 2022 and whose leader routinely threatens to obliterate South Korea and Japan and other countries.
Meanwhile, as Tehran provides Putin with drones, ballistic missiles, and training, Russia is sharing technology with Iran on nuclear issues, as well as space information. The two countries have accelerated negotiations on a comprehensive strategic partnership. Last year, Russia announced plans to send Iran advanced fighter aircraft and attack helicopters.
This as Iran continues to arm, to train, and to fund proxies in the Middle East to carry out terrorist attacks across the region and beyond – including Hamas, whose appalling October 7th attacks killed civilians from over a dozen UN member-states; and including the Houthis, whose attacks on international shipping have driven up the cost of food, of medicine, other supplies for people around the world, and have added to the suffering of the Yemeni people.
North Korea and Iran are not the only ones aiding and abetting Russia. China, another permanent member of this council, is the top provider of machine tools, microelectronics, and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, to restock, to ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal aggression.
Now, some may ask how the United States or any other country helping Ukraine defend itself can criticize countries for providing military support to Russia.
There is a profound difference.
Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine, the victim.
Russia fights for conquests. Ukraine fights for survival.
If countries stopped supporting Russia, Putin’s invasion would soon come to an end.
If countries stopped supporting Ukraine, Ukraine could soon come to an end.
This brings me to the second step that members of this council can take.
One of the council’s primary responsibilities is seeking to peacefully resolve conflicts. As President Zelenskyy has said, no one wants peace more than Ukraine.
The United States also wants to end this conflict. And before Putin launched his full invasion, we used every tool we could to try to prevent it, including right here at the Security Council.
But the way the council seeks to end this conflict matters. The UN Charter is crystal clear on this point. When fulfilling its responsibilities, the Security Council, and I quote, “shall act in accordance with the purpose and principles of the United Nations,” end quote. In other words, we must seek a peace that upholds, rather than undermines the UN’s core tenets.
That’s why all of us here have a responsibility to support Ukraine’s call for a just and lasting peace to end Russia’s war of aggression.
A just and lasting peace must affirm the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence.
A just and lasting peace must preserve Ukraine’s right to choose its own path, its own allies, its own future.
A just and lasting peace requires Ukraine’s full participation – and assent.
A just and lasting peace must support Ukraine’s reconstruction and recovery, with Russia paying to fix the damage it’s caused.
A just and lasting peace must address both accountability and reconciliation.
The United States is ready and willing to work with any partner dedicated to supporting peace based on these principles.
Ukraine has said multiple times that diplomacy is the only way to end this war – and that it’s prepared to engage in negotiations.
Putin, on the other hand, has no interest in such a peace – recently declaring that Russia would return to the negotiating table only when Ukraine withdraws its troops from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya; in other words, when Ukraine withdraws from its own territory.
Putin continues to claim, falsely, that Ukraine is not a real state. He continues to deny that the Ukrainian people have their own identity. In Putin’s eyes, the Ukrainian people – like Ukraine itself – do not exist.
Other countries have put forward their own proposals – some of which make no mention of the UN Charter or its principles, fail to distinguish between the aggressor and the aggressed, and call on all sides to de-escalate.
A proposal along these lines would reward Putin’s aggression, allow him to rest, re-arm, re-invade Ukraine – as he has done time and again. It would also embolden would-be aggressors everywhere around the world.
As history teaches us, peace without principle is prologue to more conflict, to more suffering, to more instability.
So, to all nations who want this conflict to end – and do it in a way that will endure – the quickest way forward is simple: stop those who are enabling and fueling Putin’s aggression and demand a just peace that upholds the principles of the United Nations Charter.
I thank you, Mr. President.
