Zelensky alleges Russia plot on nuclear plants in defiant UN address

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00:00Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has addressed the UN General Assembly today.

00:04He told the world leaders Ukraine wants to end this conflict but said it must be a

00:09just and real peace. He went on to issue a warning about Ukraine's nuclear power plants.

00:17Recently I received yet another alarming report from our intelligence. Now Putin does seem to be

00:25planning attacks on our nuclear power plants. Any missile or drone strike, any critical incident

00:32in the energy system could lead to a nuclear disaster. A day like that must never come.

00:40And if, God forbid, Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants,

00:47radiation will not respect state borders. And unfortunately, various nations could feel

00:54the devastating effects.

00:58Well, Douglas Herbert listened to Zelensky's speech in his entirety. He's with me now. And

01:03Douglas, something else Zelensky said is that his country would not accept a deal that was,

01:08in his words, imposed from the outside. What did he mean by that?

01:13And he also said, right, we need peace, peace is needed, but it must be a real, just peace.

01:20Look, when Zelensky looks around, he might, he's kept his cool, he seems pretty composed,

01:25but he's understandably very concerned when he looks around the world right now. And as he sees

01:31it, more and more pressure is building, a lot of countries, as he sees it to reward Russian

01:36aggression. And rewarding Russian aggression means basically letting Putin dictate the terms.

01:42And letting eventual negotiations, when and if they happen, happen on Vladimir Putin's terms.

01:47Those are terms which, as Zelensky would see it, and the majority of Ukrainians would see it,

01:52amounts to capitulation. That is acquiescing to the facts on the ground, which are that Russia

01:58now occupies roughly 20%, about 18% of Ukraine's territory. He says, rewarding Russian aggression

02:05from the Ukrainian standpoint, what does it do? It freezes the conflict in place. We've had a lot

02:09of frozen conflicts in the past, dating all the way back to the Soviet Union. And freezing the

02:13conflict basically allows Russia to hold on to that large chunk of territory, that part of Ukraine

02:18that it now occupies. By the way, including Crimea. What his entire message to world leaders is, and

02:25he said this again and again, and I know it gets really difficult for people to keep hearing the

02:29same message, but he can't drive home the message enough. As he sees it, as most Ukrainians will

02:34tell you, this is a brutal war of aggression waged in order to resurrect, a colonial style war of

02:41aggression, trying to resurrect a past that no longer exists and impose its will on a country

02:48that has been sovereign for over 30 years. Whatever Putin's grand imperial ambitions may be,

02:55capitulating is basically rewarding his aggression. He called out countries such as, specifically,

03:01he named China and Brazil, who he fears are trying to bolster their own role as global players,

03:08their own role on the world stage, by putting forward these peace plans, which are really just

03:14plans masquerading as peace plans. They're nothing of the sort, as Zelensky would see it.

03:19They're simply disguised plans, which essentially, going back to rewarding Russian aggression. That

03:25is his central message, ready to talk peace, but it can't be any peace. It has to be a peace which

03:30doesn't amount to us going to a table where we've already given up about 20% of our land

03:35to a Putin who has shown zero signs of backing down. Douglas Herbert, thanks very much.

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