Just hours ahead of a planned speech by US President Joe Biden at the United Nations in New York, Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin made a stunning announcement.
Putin, who has long been getting humiliated in his attempts to capture all or part of Ukraine for his own, declared that Russia would be forcing the conscription of 300,000 able-bodied citizens, prioritizing those with former military experience, in an effort to bolster those troops already being obliterated in Ukraine.
On top of that, Putin reiterated that he’s “not bluffing” when it comes to the threat of using nuclear weapons.
This prompted a stern response from Joe Biden.
President Biden denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, telling world leaders that the very basis of the organization’s charter is under assault.
“As we meet today, the U.N. charter’s very basis of a stable and just, rule-based order is under attack by those who wish to tear it down or distort it for their own political advantage,” Mr. Biden said in his second address to the assembly as president. “And the United Nations’ charter was not only signed by democracies of the world. It was negotiated among citizens, dozens of nations, with vastly different histories and ideologies, united in their commitment to work for peace.”
Addressing the war in Ukraine, now in its seventh month, the president said Putin “claims he had to act because Russia was threatened, but no one threatened Russia, and no one other than Russia sought conflict.”
And then:
“Let us speak plainly: A permanent member of the U.N. Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map,” Mr. Biden said. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenants of the United Nations charter, no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.”
Putin’s army has been plagued by desertions, logistics failures, and dysfunctional equipment for the entire seven months they’ve been in Ukraine, and there is no telling what sort of strain another 300,000 mouths to feed will put on the Kremlin’s already-embarrassed war machine.
