Zelenskyy: Putin is patient zero and has to be stopped

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called Russian leader Vladimir Putin "patient zero" who is spreading the idea of war around the world.

Source: Zelenskyy's address to the UN General Assembly in New York, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Zelenskyy stressed that Putin "is always looking for someone who can help him kill more people for every kilometre of land, take more territory and attack another country" rather than stopping and running his own country.

"After all of this, can you even imagine him without war? He is 'patient zero' – the one from whom this idea of war keeps spreading further. And wherever it spreads, it brings only pain, instability, new risks and, of course, new crises," the president emphasised.

Zelenskyy said that the more freedom Putin has to act, the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else.

He explained that Ukraine is targeting Russia's oil industry in an effort to stop Moscow and undermine its ability to finance the war.

"Oil itself is not Ukraine's target. It is not our target. Not gasoline or diesel, not factories or ports as such. Our target is Russia's ability to finance this war, to drag it out, to make it more brutal and more destructive. Russia's finances and Russia's production are what must be stopped if Putin is to be stopped," he stressed.

In this context, Zelenskyy pointed out that when anyone lifts or eases sanctions against Russia, they "give this war more time".

"And when someone in the world weakens sanctions, weakens sanctions against Russian oligarchs, it may make life more comfortable for rich Russians, but it also gives the war more time – more time for Putin to send poor people into the kill zone," he added.

Zelenskyy noted that Russia threatens lives in Ukraine every hour by attacking the country with drones and missiles.

"Would your country survive if, God forbid, you had to face something like this? Ukraine has," the president asked those present, urging them to join efforts to strengthen Ukraine's air defence.

Background:

• Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha stressed during a UN Security Council meeting that Russia's war against Ukraine poses a threat to the entire world.
• It was also reported that 50 countries and the European Union issued a joint statement in support of Ukraine at the UN, calling on Russia to agree to a ceasefire. The United States did not join the statement.
• The previous day, US President Donald Trump called on Putin to "settle the war" against Ukraine.

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