To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out. - Antony Blinken

The international rules-based order that’s critical to maintaining peace and security is being put to the test by Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin’s attacks are inflicting an ever-increasing toll on civilians there. Hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, many more wounded, as have citizens of other countries. More than a million refugees have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries. Millions of people across Ukraine are trapped in increasingly dire conditions as Russia destroys more critical infrastructure. For example, Mariupol’s mayor says that most of the besieged city’s residents are living without water, without electricity, without heat. Bridges to the city have been destroyed. Women, children, growing ranks of wounded civilians cannot get out. Food and medical supplies cannot get in. The mayor wrote today, and I quote, “We are simply being destroyed.” The world has seen Russia use these grisly tactics before in Syria, in Chechnya. Meanwhile, Russia’s reckless operation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant risked a catastrophe, a nuclear incident. The Kremlin should immediately cease all attacks around Ukrainian nuclear facilities and allow civilian personnel to do their work to ensure the facility’s safety and security, as both the IAEA director general and a resolution adopted yesterday by the agency’s board of governors have called on Russia to do.

Here is the reality: None of us chose this war. Not the Ukrainians, who knew the crushing toll it would take. Not the United States, which warned that it was coming and worked to prevent it. Not the vast majority of countries at the United Nations. And neither did our people, or the people of virtually every UN member-state, who are feeling the war's consequences in greater food insecurity and higher energy prices. Nor did the Russian mothers and fathers whose children are being sent off to fight and die in this war, or the Russian citizens who continue to risk their freedom to protest against it, including those who came out into the streets of Moscow after President Putin announced his mobilization to chant, "Let our children live!" Indeed, it must be asked: How has this aggression against Ukraine by President Putin improved the lives or prospects of a single Russian citizen? One man chose this war. One man can end it. Because if Russia stops fighting, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. That's why we will continue to support Ukraine as it defends itself, and strengthen its hand to achieve a diplomatic solution on just terms at a negotiating table. As President Zelenskyy has said repeatedly, diplomacy is the only way to end this war. But diplomacy cannot and must not be used as a cudgel to impose on Ukraine a settlement that cuts against the UN Charter, or rewards Russia for violating it.

The United States continues to work methodically to collect, to preserve, to analyze evidence of atrocities and to make this information available to the appropriate bodies. We’re supporting a multinational team of experts that’s assisting a war crimes unit set up by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, with a view toward eventually pursuing criminal accountability. These efforts will also ensure that Russia cannot escape the verdict of history. Just moments ago, as I was coming into this room, I learned that UN member states had come together once again to condemn Russia’s aggression and suspend it from the Human Rights Council. A country that’s perpetrating gross and systematic violations of human rights should not sit on a body whose job it is to protect those rights.