Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned Tuesday that Russia is “weaponizing” every little thing from meals and vitality to kidnapped youngsters in its warfare in opposition to Ukraine — and he warned world leaders that the identical might occur to them.

“When hatred is weaponized in opposition to one nation, it by no means stops there,” he said at the U.N. General Assembly’s annual top-level meeting. “The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into weapons against you — against the international rules-based order.”

The war in Ukraine has deepened major global supply disruptions caused by the pandemic, driving a huge spike in food and energy prices, jolting the global economy and increasing hardship in many developing countries.

READ | Ukraine faces ‘very high bar’ to expel all Russians: US military official

Decades-old energy supply channels to Europe from Russia, a major oil and gas producer, were halted or severely disrupted by the war due to sanctions, trade disputes, pipeline shutoffs and a major push by Western countries to find alternative sources. Both Russia and Ukraine also are major grain exporters, and Russia withdrew this past summer from a deal that allowed shipments of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.

Zelenskyy pointed to the food and fuel crunches, and he highlighted what Ukraine says were kidnappings of at least tens of thousands of children taken from Ukraine after Moscow’s invasion: “What will happen to them?”

“Those youngsters in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their households are damaged. And that is clearly a genocide,” Zelenskyy mentioned in remarks that ran quarter-hour — the assembly’s often-disregarded time restrict.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin and one other official, accusing them of abducting youngsters from Ukraine. Russian officers have denied any pressured transfers of kids, saying some Ukrainian children are in foster care.

READ | Joe Biden urges world leaders to stand by Ukraine at UN General Assembly

Russia will get its likelihood to handle the General Assembly on Saturday. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky sat in Russia’s seat throughout Zelenskyy’s tackle.

“Did he speak?” Polyansky mentioned with a wry smile when an Associated Press reporter requested about his response to the tackle. “I didn’t notice he was speaking. I was on my phone.”

Zelenskyy took to the world stage at a delicate level in his nation’s marketing campaign to keep up worldwide assist for its battle. Nearly 19 months after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion, Ukrainian forces are three months right into a counteroffensive that has not gone as quick or in addition to initially hoped.

READ | Canada’s $24.5 million aid for Ukraine amid Russia war

Ukraine and its allies forged the nation’s trigger as a battle for the rule of worldwide regulation, for the sovereignty of each nation with a robust and doubtlessly expansionist neighbor, and for the steadiness of world meals and vitality provides.

“We must stand up to this naked aggression today and deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow,” U.S. President Joe Biden informed the meeting Tuesday in his personal speech. As he pledged assist to Ukraine, there was a spherical of applause, together with from Zelenskyy.

Russia insists its warfare is justified, claiming that it’s defending Russian audio system in Ukraine from a hostile authorities and defending Russian pursuits in opposition to NATO encroachment, and extra.

The warfare has raged longer and losses have been better than Russia hoped, and the preventing has spurred widespread worldwide condemnation in opposition to Moscow.

But the Kremlin additionally has influential mates that haven’t joined the refrain of censure: China and India, as an illustration, have staked out impartial positions. So have many Middle Eastern and African nations. Many Latin American and Caribbean international locations choose to focus world consideration on different world points, together with local weather change and battle in Africa.

Moscow is eager to show its world affect and its relationship with China and insists that it can’t be internationally remoted by the U.S. and its European allies.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is anxious that backing from its allies could also be ebbing. They have provided billions of {dollars}’ value of arms however worry that their stockpiles are shrinking and that protection contractors are struggling to spice up manufacturing traces.

Hours earlier than Zelenskyy spoke on the U.N., allied protection leaders convened at a U.S. navy base in Germany to debate subsequent steps. Some nations pledged additional cash and weapons. But a key sticking level is whether or not to provide longer-range missiles that Kyiv insists it wants.

The U.S. Congress is weighing Biden’s request to supply as a lot as $24 billion extra in navy and humanitarian help to Ukraine, amid a rising partisan divide over spending on the battle. Zelenskyy is scheduled to spend time Thursday on Capitol Hill and to satisfy with Biden on the White House.

After touchdown Monday in New York, Zelenskyy advised that the U.N. must reply for permitting his nation’s invader a seat on the tables of energy.

If there’s nonetheless “a place for Russian terrorists” within the United Nations, “it’s a question to all the members of the United Nations,” Zelenskyy said after visiting wounded Ukrainian service members at Staten Island University Hospital.

Russia is a permanent, veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, which is entrusted with maintaining international peace and security.

Zelenskyy took the United Nations to task even before the war. In one memorable example, he lamented at the General Assembly in 2021 that the U.N. was ”a retired superhero who’s long forgotten how great they once were.”

A former comic and actor who took workplace in 2019, Zelenskyy later grew to become a wartime chief, sporting navy fatigues, rallying residents at dwelling and showing just about and in particular person earlier than quite a few worldwide our bodies.

At the Staten Island hospital, he awarded medals to navy members who had misplaced limbs. With assist from a New Jersey-based charity referred to as Kind Deeds, 18 troops have been fitted for prostheses and are present process outpatient bodily remedy, hospital leaders mentioned.

“We all will be waiting for you back home,” Zelenskyy informed these he met. “We absolutely need every one of you.”