Zelensky's Speech at UN General Assembly: Trolling Russia, Vaccines and Attack on Shefir

During the speech, the president spoke about Russia's crimes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the UN General Assembly. He touched on the attack on Sergei Shefir, COVID-19 vaccines and Russia's crimes. We bring you the main points of the president's speech. 

The Attack on Shefir

Zelensky opened his speech by describing the attack on his chief of staff, Sergei Shefir. He called it the price of changes in the state and of reforms. 

Volodymyr Zelensky
President of Ukraine

Every night before the UN General Assembly is a sleepless night. In 2019 it was the nervousness before my first speech, 2020 was generally a year without sleep for the whole world because of COVID-19, and I will tell you more about last night. Three o'clock in the morning, dozens of calls. An assassination attempt was made on the first assistant to the President of Ukraine, 12 shots, 3 hit the driver. This is the price of changes in the state, this is the price of reforms. Fortunately, Sergei is alive, and fortunately, the driver's life is no longer under threat. 

Trolling Russia

The president advised “someone,” hinting at Russia, not to walk out of the hall during discussions of aggression and occupation, but to leave the territory of Ukraine. 

Volodymyr Zelensky
President of Ukraine

We are grateful that the item on the situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine was included in the Assembly's agenda. But how can Crimea and Donbas disappear from the agenda while remaining occupied? This is obvious, and not only to us. I am grateful to all the states that this year remembered Ukraine in their speeches, right here, which is very important, and to many others who are not shy to say that Ukraine is their friend and partner, who can call things by their names: to call occupation occupation and aggression aggression. Not fearing that someone will make a show of leaving this hall. There is no need to do this, this is a platform for dialogue. It will certainly not bring happiness to Ukraine. It could bring happiness to Ukraine if someone made a show of leaving our state territories and our state borders.

Zelensky did not say the word “Russia,” but he hinted at it. He also reminded that Crimea and Yalta have been occupied for eight years, and asked: “How do we want to revive the UN if the place where the idea of the UN was born is occupied by a permanent member of the UN Security Council?” 

COVID-19 Vaccines

During his speech, the president compared the distribution of coronavirus vaccines in the world to the distribution of lifeboats and called medicines a tool of discrimination. 

Volodymyr Zelensky
President of Ukraine

We played at equality, we played at unity. It is one thing to share common goals, and another to share vaccines together. It turned out that in articles about equality, as in advertisements, there is an asterisk and a note in small print: we are all human, we are all in the same boat, but first-class passengers will get the lifeboats first. Ukraine did not expect help from others and helped others without waiting for gratitude. We sent our medical workers to Italy, we sent necessary supplies. Ukraine helped everyone who needed it, when the world forgot that the pandemic is by no means forever and that states will one day gather right here again, but how will they look each other in the eye then? 

Zelensky noted that “who could have imagined that medicines would become a weapon of discrimination.” 

Recall that in 2020, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” due to the uneven distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. 

Quoting Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky spoke about Russia's crimes in Crimea and Donbas, in particular about illegal detentions of Ukrainians and “passportization.” 

According to him, Crimea requires the attention of the UN even more in the context of environmental protection, since Crimea's nature has been turned into a military base: “instead of fauna and flora there are fleets and soldiers.” 

Zelensky said he counts on international support in the issue of freeing Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Nariman Dzhelyal and about 450 Ukrainians who are illegally held in the temporarily occupied territories and in Russia. 

The President of Ukraine noted that no one in the world feels safe and cannot hide behind international law. He then quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Munich conference in 2007 and at the UN General Assembly in 2015. 

The quote is as follows: “This could lead to the collapse of the entire architecture of international relations, when we really have no rules left except the right of the strong. It will be a world in which egoism will dominate, a world in which there will be more and more diktat and less and less equality, less real democracy and freedoms. After all, what is state sovereignty? It is first of all a matter of freedom, of free choice, of one's own destiny for every person, for a people, for a state.”