Jewish comedian dropping truth bombs

March 12, 2025 5:55 AM

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses General Assembly, 78th Session (pdf) - "Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons."

I welcome all who stand for common efforts! And I promise – being really united we can guarantee fair peace for all nations.

What’s more, unity can prevent wars.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Secretary General! Fellow leaders! This hall saw many wars but not as an active defender against aggressions.

In many cases, the fear of war, the final war, was the loudest here – the war after which no one would gather in the General Assembly Hall again. The Third World War was seen as a nuclear war. A conflict between states on the highway to nukes. Other wars seemed less scary compared to a threat of the so-called “great powers” firing their nuclear stockpiles.

So, the 20th century taught the world to restrain from the use of weapons of mass destruction – not to deploy, not to proliferate, not to threaten with, and not to test, but to promote a complete nuclear disarmament.

Frankly, this is a good strategy.

But it should not be the only strategy to protect the world from this final war. Ukraine gave up its third largest nuclear arsenal. The world then decided Russia should become a keeper of such power. Yet, history shows it was Russia who deserved nuclear disarmament the most, back in the 1990s.

And Russia deserves it now – terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons.

But truly not the nukes are the scariest now. While nukes remain in place, mass destruction is gaining momentum. The aggressor is weaponizing many other things and those things are used not only against our country but against all of yours as well.

Fellow leaders!

There are many conventions that restrict weapons but there are no real restrictions on weaponization.

[... one of the reasons your grocery bills are so high? ... maybe don't weaponize nuclear power plants?]

The third example is children.

Unfortunately, various terrorist groups abduct children to put pressure on their families and societies. But never before has mass kidnapping and deportation become a part of government policy. Not until now.

We know the names of tens of thousands of children and have evidence on hundreds of thousands of others kidnapped by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine and later deported. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for this crime.

We are trying to get children back home but time goes by. What will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken… This is clearly a genocide.

When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there. Each decade Russia starts a new war. Parts of Moldova and Georgia remain occupied. Russia turned Syria into ruins. And if not Russia, the chemical weapons would have never been used there in Syria. Russia has almost swallowed Belarus. It is obviously threatening Kazakhstan and the Baltic states… And the goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into a weapon against you – against the international rules-based order. Many seats in the General Assembly Hall may become empty if Russia succeeds with its treachery and aggression.

Ladies and gentlemen!

The aggressor scatters death and brings ruins even without nukes but the outcomes are alike. We see towns and villages in Ukraine wiped out by Russian artillery. Levelled to the ground completely! We see the war of drones. We know the possible effects of spreading the war into cyberspace. Artificial intelligence could be trained to combat well – before it would learn to help humanity. Thank God, people have not yet learned to use climate as a weapon. Even though humanity is failing on its climate policy objectives – this means that extreme weather will still impact normal global life and some evil state will also weaponize its outcomes. And when people in the streets of New York and other cities of the world went out on climate protest – we all have seen them… And when people in Morocco and Libya and other countries die as a result of natural disasters… And when islands and countries disappear under water… And when tornados and deserts are spreading into new territories… And when all of this is happening one unnatural disaster in Moscow decided to launch a big war and kill tens of thousands of people.

We have to stop it. We must act united – to defeat the aggressor and focus all our capabilities and energy on addressing these challenges.

As nukes are restrained, likewise the aggressor must be restrained and all its tools and methods of war. Each war now can become final, but it takes our unity to make sure that aggression will NOT break in again. And it is not a dialog between the so-called “great powers” somewhere behind closed doors that can guarantee us all the new no-wars-era, but open work of all nations for peace...

Last year I presented the outlines of the Ukrainian peace formula at the UN General Assembly. Later in Indonesia, I presented the full formula. And over the past the year, the peace formula has become the basis to obtain the existing security architecture. Now we can bring back to life the UN Charter and guarantee the full power for the rules-based world order. Tomorrow I will present the details at a special meeting of the UN Security Council.

The main thing is that it is not only about Ukraine. More than 140 states and international organizations have supported the Ukrainian Peace Formula fully or in part. The Ukrainian Peace Formula is becoming global. Its points offer solutions and steps that will stop all forms of weaponization that Russia used against Ukraine and other countries and may be used by other aggressors.

Look – for the first time in modern history, we have the chance to end the aggression on the terms of the nation which was attacked. This is a real chance for every nation – to ensure that aggression against your state, if it happens, God forbid, will end not because your land will be divided and you will be forced to submit to military or political pressure, but because your territory and sovereignty will be fully restored.

We launched the format of meetings between national security advisors and diplomatic representatives. Important talks and consultations were held in Hiroshima, in Copenhagen, and in Jeddah on the implementation of the Peace Formula. And we are preparing a Global Peace Summit. I invite all of you – all of you who do not tolerate any aggression – to jointly prepare the Summit.

I am aware of the attempts to make some shady dealings behind the scenes. Evil cannot be trusted – ask Prigozhin if one bets on Putin’s promises. Please, hear me. Let unity decide everything openly. While Russia is pushing the world to the final war, Ukraine is doing everything to ensure that after Russian aggression no one in the world will dare to attack any nation. Weaponization must be restrained. War crimes must be punished. Deported people must come back home. And the occupier must return to their own land. We must be united to make it. And we will do it.

Slava Ukraini!

Long live free Ukraine, long live a democratic world.

previously: "Forty-five years after Churchill warned that the world was splitting in two, it appeared that democracies, led by the United States of America, had won. In that triumphant mood, American leaders set out to spread capitalism into formerly communist countries, believing that democracy would follow since capitalism and democracy went hand in hand."

But history, in fact, was not over. Oligarchs in the former Soviet republics quickly began to consolidate formerly public property into their own hands. They did so through the use of what scholar Andrew Wilson called “virtual politics,” a system that came out of the techniques of state propaganda to become what he called “performance art.” By the early 2000s, the Russian state, under the control of former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, had a monopoly on “political technology,” which spread like wildfire as the internet became increasingly available.

Russian “political technologists” used modern media to pervert democracy. They blackmailed opponents, abused state power to help favored candidates, sponsored “double” candidates with names similar to those of opponents in order to split their voters and thus open the way for their own candidates, created false parties to create opposition, and created false narratives around elections or other events that enabled them to control public debate.

This system enabled leaders to avoid the censorship from which voters would recoil by instead creating a firehose of news until people became overwhelmed by the task of trying to figure out what was real and simply tuned out. Essentially, this system replaced the concept of voters choosing their leaders with the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing.

In 2004, Putin tried to extend his power over neighboring Ukraine by backing candidate Viktor Yanukovych for the presidency there. Yanukovych appeared to have won, but the election was full of irregularities, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe. The U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results, and the Ukrainian government voided the election.

To resurrect his political career, Yanukovych turned to an American political consultant, Paul Manafort, who had worked for both Nixon and Reagan and who was already working for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. In 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power and he fled to Russia.

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia and on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs. Manafort owed Deripaska about $17 million but had no way to repay it until his longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone, who was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, turned to him for help. Manafort did not take a salary from the campaign but immediately let Deripaska know about his new position.

Russian operatives told Manafort that in exchange for a promise to turn U.S. policy toward Russia, they would work to get Trump elected. They wanted Trump to look the other way as Putin took control of eastern Ukraine through a “peace” plan that would end the war in Crimea, weaken NATO, and remove U.S. sanctions from Russian entities.

According to a 2020 report from the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, “the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election…by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.”

That effort was “part of a broader, sophisticated, and ongoing information warfare campaign designed to sow discord in American politics and society…a vastly more complex and strategic assault on the United States than was initially understood…the latest installment in an increasingly brazen interference by the Kremlin on the citizens and democratic institutions of the United States.” It was “a sustained campaign of information warfare against the United States aimed at influencing how this nation’s citizens think about themselves, their government, and their fellow Americans.”

In other words, they used “political technology,” manipulating media to undermine democracy by creating a false narrative that enabled them to control public debate.

posted by kliuless (16 comments total)

A serious question that reflects the propaganda under which I was raised in the US: what is current life like for an ordinary person in Russia? I am genuinely curious.
posted by Kitteh at 6:21 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]

Ooooh, I see, we tried to save the backwards Russian people by introducing them to the light of capitalism, but the wiley ex-communists perverted our teachings to become a warlike nation ruled by oligarchs that kidnaps children, commits atrocities, supresses political dissent, and manipulates its people with reactionary nationalist propaganda. If only there were some precedent that could have given us warning.
posted by jy4m at 6:30 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]

For context: Zelenskyy's speech is from September 2023.
posted by trig at 7:03 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]

> [culturess:] "Just look at what follows footage of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's United Nations speech concerning the necessity for all countries (including his) to engage in nuclear disarmament. Right away, Grimonprez cuts to a news headline revealing that stock market numbers declined substantially afterward. American leaders, already viewing anything related to Russia as toxic, were heightened. Capitalism and the pockets of the bourgeoisie were threatened, thus setting into motion countless historical events resulting in international bloodshed.
...
"What companies profit from this barbarism? Well, Grimonprez and Chaubet reveal that by cutting from these old images into a sleek modern commercial for a hideous-looking Tesla automobile. We don’t need narration or extra visual cues to understand what Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat [kanopy] is saying
posted by HearHere at 7:28 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]

A serious question that reflects the propaganda under which I was raised in the US: what is current life like for an ordinary person in Russia? I am genuinely curious.

The Future is History (2017) is a good read on the effects of the rise of Putin-ism on four regular Russians.
posted by mazola at 9:14 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]

Holding nuclear weapons is what terrorists do.
posted by 3.2.3 at 9:30 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]

Seconding the recommendation for Masha Gessen’s book, it’s terrific and terrifying. (If you’re thinking “wait, didn’t they get cancelled?”, the answer is yes, in late 2023, for calling out Germany for not recognising Israel’s attack on Gaza as genocide.)
posted by rory at 9:40 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]

Thanks rory and mazola, I am going to see if my library has that book and put it on hold if so.
posted by Kitteh at 10:02 AM on March 12

jy4m, I’m not seeing where the “blame ex-commies for perverting capitalism” reading that you’re skewering is in the post.

I feel like the post is in line with the evidence that the political technologists and oligarchy are a result of hyper-capitalist Shock Doctrine and that greed and hunger for power are present in human populations no matter what economic system they’re raised under
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:55 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]

It continues to blow my mind that (check's notes...) Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin talked Ukraine into *voluntarily* giving up the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, in exchange for... ???
I recall the mid 90's as a strangely hopeful time, global geopolitics-wise. I remember watching a documentary, which I can't find now, that followed the quite serious efforts of a former U.S. Air Force General (Strategic Air Command?) to get the U.S. and Russia to sit down and talk about further strategic disarmament (nukes, subs, long-range bombers, etc.), which effort seemed to sputter out as it encountered various vested interests. (Big Nukes are Big Business wherever they grow.)
jy4m, I don't believe political ideology is driving any of the major conflicts today. Yes, the various leaders involved may talk at great length about ideals they wish to uphold, but note how often those ideals bend to immediate political expediency and ask yourself if the leaders really believe what they're saying or... maybe they're just lying to hold onto or expand their power? (Irregardless of whether they self-identify as "capitalists!" or "communists!" or whatever.)
posted by ButteryMales at 11:21 AM on March 12

I'm speaking specifically to the Heather Cox Richardson blog post, and its juxtaposition with Zelensky's apocalyptic prediction. The post is critical of "radical indivdualism" and "[qualifier]-capitalism," but not of the cold warriors as such. At no point does it ascribe any mistakes to the western bloc except believing that the fight is over. It does not describe the US having anything to do with the destruction of the Soviet Union, does not draw a line from the neoliberals to the postsoviet society that they built. The only American who has ever exerted influence on postsoviet Ukrainian politics is apparently Paul Manafort. The post offers a coinage for an apparently novel form of corruption that came from "state propaganda," which is then attached to our own homegrown fascist billionaires as evidence that they've been trained by the slavic menace.

Compared to the twisted tale Richardson tells, the truth is quite simple. Liberal anticommunism, as soon as it runs out of communists, becomes fascism. The anticommunists won, and either became fascists or retired to sinecures at obsolete think tanks.
posted by jy4m at 11:39 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]

It continues to blow my mind that (check's notes...) Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin talked Ukraine into *voluntarily* giving up the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, in exchange for... ???

Considering that the world's largest ever nuclear disaster had JUST occurred on their own land seven years prior and which ultimately lead to the success their independence movement; it doesn't seem like such an unlikely scenario.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:07 AM on March 13

> It continues to blow my mind that (check's notes...) Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin talked Ukraine into *voluntarily* giving up the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, in exchange for... ???

Sooooo, my understanding is that Ukrainian leaders were not in the loop on nuclear weapon decisions, even after the Soviet bloc fell apart -- the people with the guns guarding the nukes were ex-Soviets, but not necessarily Ukranians, and they were not taking their orders from Kyiv.

I think it would be more apt to say that there were nuclear weapons stationed on Ukrainian territory than to say that Ukraine ever had a nuclear arsenal to divest.
posted by Sauce Trough at 2:51 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Also, the Ukrainians would not have had the resources and infrastructure to maintain their nuclear weapons over the long haul.
posted by mmascolino at 7:22 AM on March 14

If the "short haul" had been enough to maintain strategic ambiguity for about 30 years, it would have been enough. Plus, if Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, and South Africa could all manage to create a successful nuclear weapons programs from scratch, the Ukrainians probably inherited enough technical know-how to seize the weapons in their country and maintain a credible deterrence in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union if they had wanted to. They voluntarily chose not to do that in exchange for security guarantees that turned out not to be worth the paper they were written on.

They did the right thing and were betrayed for it. They didn't have to do the right thing. I would say that if we want to have any credibility in persuading other nuclear states to disarm or other non-nuclear states to not pursue nuclear weapons then we should give Ukraine maximal support in this war, but I fear that horse has also left the barn at this point.

I don't think we should be downplaying Ukraine's responsible actions with their nuclear stockpile after the fall of the Soviet Union or minimize our responsibility to them and our failure in upholding that responsibility.
posted by Reverend John at 9:47 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]

The idea that Ukraine couldn't maintain the weapons is fairly silly; in a lot of ways they were the brains of the USSR, with a large aerospace sector, a huge nuclear energy sector, etc. But the US was threatening them with big economic penalties for breaking nonproliferation, Russia didn't want any of the other republics to keep their weapons either and likely asserting full control would have led to some clashes, and of course keeping them world have been a direct cost as well. A bad decision in the end, but I can see why they made it.
posted by tavella at 10:57 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]