Zelenskyy and U.S. Spokesmen Denounce Russia’s Strikes on Ukraine

Nov. 24, 2022 (EIRNS)—At yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a prerecorded video message accusing Russia of being a “terrorist state,” and was followed by U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “clearly, clearly weaponizing winter” and trying to “freeze [Ukraine] into submission.” The U.S. will continue to stand with Ukraine “for long as it takes,” added Thomas-Greenfield, as Kiev fights to “defend its freedom, its sovereignty and its democracy.”

U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson went a step further in her comments. “As Russia struggles on the battlefield, it is increasingly turning to horrific attacks against the Ukrainian people with punishing strikes damaging energy grid infrastructure, and deliberately doing so as winter approaches.” She argued that this “shows Russia is willing to increase the risk of a nuclear safety incident that could not only further harm Ukraine, but affect the entire region as well.”

Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia countered that “the residential buildings become damaged and civilians get killed on account of Ukrainian air defense systems that are deployed in centers of Ukrainian cities rather than on the outskirts. As a result, wreckage of the missiles or stray Ukrainian missiles hit the facilities that we never targeted. For example, today, Ukrainian web users posted photos of missiles that had hit residential buildings in Kiev and Vyshgorod (the Kiev Region). Those turned out to be American air defense missiles that Kiev had been supplied with. Let me draw the attention of my U.S. colleague to this. Your thoughtless provision of weapons to Ukraine is already killing civilians not only in Donbas, but in Ukrainian cities and towns.”