The war in Ukraine is a confrontation between the possible, which we and many people in the world need, and the impossible, which Russia so desperately fights for. Russia seeks to make impossible the free and independent existence of a neighboring country that considers it a colony, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
"Russia wants to deprive the peoples of the world of the certainty of freedom of navigation, the certainty of this basic freedom of peace and prosperity in every corner of our planet. Russia has blockaded our ports on the Black Sea with its navy. Russian troops have attacked peaceful merchant ships and directed missiles at our port infrastructure," Zelensky said Saturday, speaking by video link at the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue Asian Security Summit.
He said, "The Black Sea is now the most dangerous sea in the world, and the responsibility for that lies entirely with Russia."
"The Russian leadership seeks to discard all the achievements of the historical development of mankind, in particular the system of international law that we have today. And wants to return to the life of the 19th century or even earlier, when it was impossible to ensure the harmonious development and well-being of billions of people," the president said.
Zelensky stressed that "we must stop the war that this state has started against my state, trying to return the world to the old times, when the freedom of peoples and people's lives did not matter. We must break the ability of Russia and every other country in the world to block the seas and destroy freedom of navigation."
"If it's about sanctions, we need sanctions. If we are talking about symmetrical measures to limit service to Russian ships, we need those measures. Russia needs to feel that its belligerent policy will have consequences for itself as well," he said.
Zelensky called for "ensuring reform of the United Nations so that all countries comply with international law. If this reform had already taken place, he said, we would be quite capable of responding to any aggression, not just Russian aggression at the global level.
