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Zelenskyy targets Russia’s finances in UN speech · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: It's been nearly five years of war in Ukraine, and
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  Speaker 1: as another cold winter approaches, there appears to be no
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  Speaker 1: end in sight from Russia's full-scale invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr
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  Speaker 1: Zelensky addressed the UN General Assembly this afternoon, and he
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  Speaker 1: laid out Ukraine's strategy to drain Russian resources to end
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  Speaker 1: the war.
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  Speaker 2: Oil itself is not Ukraine's target, not our target, not
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  Speaker 2: gasoline or diesel. not factories or ports as such. Our
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  Speaker 2: target is Russia's ability to finance this war, to drag
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  Speaker 2: it out, to make it more brutal and more destructive.
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  Speaker 2: Russia's finances and Russia's production are what must be stopped
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  Speaker 2: if Putin is to be stopped.
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  Speaker 1: The CBC's Briar Stewart was monitoring Zelensky's speech from the
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  Speaker 1: Ukrainian capital and joins us now live with more. So Briar,
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  Speaker 1: what stood out for you from Zelensky's speech at the
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  Speaker 1: UN General Assembly?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, Andrew, I thought it was a particularly
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  Speaker 3: strong speech from Zelensky because he really tried to connect
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  Speaker 3: what's going on to Ukraine to some of the threats
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  Speaker 3: that other countries could face. Specifically, he talked about Russia's president,
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  Speaker 3: Vladimir Putin. He called him a couple of times patient zero,
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  Speaker 3: somebody who spreads kind of the ideology of war to
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  Speaker 3: other countries. He talked about some of the threats that
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  Speaker 3: that Poland and Baltic nations, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, are
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  Speaker 3: facing with drones coming into their airspace. And he also
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  Speaker 3: talked about the rapid development of weaponry. And that's something
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  Speaker 3: that we have seen evolve just so quickly over the
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  Speaker 3: nearly five years of Russia's full-scale invasion, just how it
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  Speaker 3: has become a drone war with the drones themselves, you know,
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  Speaker 3: becoming more deadlier and faster. Certainly, we've seen that in
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  Speaker 3: recent weeks with the jet-powered drones. And then Zelensky kind
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  Speaker 3: of took it one step further, connecting what's happening here to,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the big factor of artificial intelligence and what
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  Speaker 3: that could mean for weapon systems. Here's some of that
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  Speaker 3: case that he made.
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  Speaker 2: We need to slow it down before we reach the
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  Speaker 2: next stage, because as early as next year, there is
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  Speaker 2: already a real possibility that AI, not only people, will
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  Speaker 2: begin to decide what happens on the battlefield. And we
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  Speaker 2: need peace before we reach that point.
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  Speaker 3: Now in terms of the situation in Ukraine, he also
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  Speaker 3: mentioned quite a few statistics, some of them which I
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  Speaker 3: hadn't heard before. He talked about how in the first
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  Speaker 3: eight months of this year, Russia has fired more than 2,000
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  Speaker 3: missiles at Ukraine and more than 60,000 drones. And about 7,000
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  Speaker 3: of those are the new jet-powered model, which we've talked
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  Speaker 3: about being so hard for Ukraine's air defenses to intercept.
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  Speaker 3: He talked about how Ukrainians are really bracing for what
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  Speaker 3: could be a very bleak winter. But he said if
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  Speaker 3: that's the case, Ukraine will continue to target Russia's refineries,
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  Speaker 3: its ports, its warehouses. And I think I should mention, too,
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  Speaker 3: that at the start of the speech, Zelensky talked about
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  Speaker 3: being in a plane on the way to New York
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  Speaker 3: when he read U.S. President Donald Trump's post where he
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  Speaker 3: said that Russia had lost control of its refining industry.
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  Speaker 3: And Zelensky said that's humiliating for a country like Russia,
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  Speaker 3: which is, you know, it's one of the world's biggest
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  Speaker 3: energy exporters. It takes great pride in its oil industry.
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  Speaker 3: It's a very lucrative oil industry. And we have seen it.
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  Speaker 3: be impacted so significantly from Ukraine's long-range strikes. A new
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  Speaker 3: report from the International Energy Agency said that of Russia's
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  Speaker 3: 32 major refineries, a significant number of them have been
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  Speaker 3: hit at least 15 times. And we see those images
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  Speaker 3: almost nightly now of the damage being caused to Russia's refineries.
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  Speaker 3: And Zelensky promised that Ukraine would keep that up if
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  Speaker 3: this war continues in the months ahead, which right now
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  Speaker 3: it certainly looks like it will.
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  Speaker 1: And while this is happening, there have been several strikes
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  Speaker 1: within Kyiv. Where you are, what can you tell us?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, we were out all through the day today. And
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  Speaker 3: there were, I think, nine or ten different air raid alerts.
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  Speaker 3: And I'd say the most significant one was around mid-morning.
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  Speaker 3: It lasted for two hours. And over that time, it
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  Speaker 3: was just kind of drone after drone coming into the capital,
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  Speaker 3: hitting targets everywhere. They seemed to focus on a few
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  Speaker 3: select targets. One was sort of a market, would have
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  Speaker 3: been described as a market. It was next to some
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  Speaker 3: rail infrastructure. Another one was a nine-story government building. We
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  Speaker 3: understand that at least two people were killed. More than
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  Speaker 3: 40 were injured, many of them requiring hospital care. And
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  Speaker 3: we spent the day kind of going around the capital,
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  Speaker 3: navigating where we should be with the threat of drones
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  Speaker 3: and air raid alerts at some points. being underground in
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  Speaker 3: metro stations. And we were talking to Ukrainians kind of
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  Speaker 3: all throughout the day. And people really, really are exhausted. And,
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  Speaker 3: you know, they've been living through war this whole time and,
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  Speaker 3: you know, getting used to it, if you want to
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  Speaker 3: use that word, kind of carrying on, continuing with their routine.
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  Speaker 3: But what we've seen over the last few weeks with
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  Speaker 3: these multi-hour alerts during the day and just kind of the,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the barrage of drones after drones coming is
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  Speaker 3: it really has brought things to another level because it
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  Speaker 3: is just so disruptive. I mean, people talk to us
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  Speaker 3: about having to go to school, having to go to work,
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  Speaker 3: you know, doing their shopping, doing their errands, trying to
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  Speaker 3: figure out how to continue on with life, you know,
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  Speaker 3: when you have this kind of often constant aerial threat. And,
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  Speaker 3: you know, Ukraine does not have effective system to intercept
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  Speaker 3: them at the moment. We saw that driving around the city.
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  Speaker 3: We saw the air defenses, the teams with the machine
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  Speaker 3: guns pointed at the sky. We know that they're using
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  Speaker 3: air defense missiles to try to intercept these things. But
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  Speaker 3: the problem is these jet-powered drones right now, they are
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  Speaker 3: just too fast for their traditional interceptors. And Ukraine is
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  Speaker 3: working on it. They say they have A bunch of
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  Speaker 3: companies working on the technology. They say there's about four
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  Speaker 3: models right now where there's been some successful interceptions, but
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  Speaker 3: they're not there yet. They hope to be. I know
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  Speaker 3: we've certainly seen kind of this pace of innovation, but
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  Speaker 3: it is a very, very big problem for Ukraine right
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  Speaker 3: now and will remain so certainly in the weeks ahead.
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  Speaker 1: Briar, we appreciate your reporting on the ground in Ukraine.
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  Speaker 1: The CBC's Briar Stewart live in Kyiv.