Zelensky tells world leaders that Putin is ‘patent zero’ for spreading war globally - but Ukraine has a cure

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Volodymyr Zelensky looked tired. His delivery was halting. Like the country he leads he can barely comprehend that he is still talking of war into the fifth year of Ukraine’s defence against Russia.

He has a new message and a new way to deliver it. Vladimir Putin, he told the assembled world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, is “patient zero” spreading the infection of war to Africa, Asia, all over the world.

“Putin is always looking for someone who can help him kill more, kill more people for every kilometre of land, take more territory, attack another country instead of simply stopping and running his own country, the Ukrainian president said.

“After all of this, can you even imagine him without war? He is patient zero, the one from whom this idea of war keeps spreading further.

“And wherever it spreads, it brings only pain, instability, new risks, and of course, new crisis. The more freedom Putin has to act, the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else.”

The warning is well known, and well taken.

Nato’s members have been rattled by constant hybrid attacks in cyberspace, through proxy thugs, drone incursions and political support for extreme right wing parties. Lately there have been intelligence warnings that an embattled Putin may strike at a Nato flank, or fringe location, to test the resolve of the most powerful military coalition on earth.

Zelensky regretted that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, wasn’t on hand to hear him speak although he was in the US, due to meet Donald Trump.

He warned against the complacency that has allowed Beijing to profit from Russia’s war to its west through exports of technology and weapons parts while fuelling the Kremlin’s ambitions with hard cash to spend on more conflicts.

But Ukraine’s president didn't actually go in to that detail. He took a more subtle approach - warning that Asia could not risk the contagion from "patient zero” carried through Pyongyang.

“His comrade, the leader of North Korea, sent his troops to Russia to support the weak points of the Russian army. The North Koreans also suffered losses, heavy losses.

“You probably saw the broadcast from Pyongyang when they honoured those who were killed. And this is madness too. Why should Koreans give their lives in a war against Ukraine?

“Kim Jong-un uses them like currency and he gets something in return. And North Korea's neighbors and countries across Asia have probably already noticed its improved ballistic missiles and Pyongyang's much greater drone capabilities,” Zelensky observed.

China has an uneasy relationship with Kim. It wold get a lot uneasier if he manages to develop better missiles to deliver the nuclear weapon he is developing, and battle tested Russian drone technology.

Zelensky had a swipe against the European Union’s recent lifting of sanctions against two Russian oligarchs saying that making “life more comfortable for rich Russians” but it “also gives the war more time, more time for Putin to send poor people into the kill zone”.

In the last eight months he claimed that Russia had suffered 248,000 dead and badly wounded and that Kyiv had the video evidence from drone feeds to prove it.

In drawing attention to the massive Russian losses since the full scale invasion of February 2022, Ukraine’s president was reinforcing the concept of the contagion from “patient zero” and the guilt the outside world should feel for its limited response to it.

He also sighted the tone of his speech at UNGA. In the passed he has drawn long applause and standing ovations as the leader of an underdog nation fighting the Russian bear.

Now his pitch is one that says we have the answers, perhaps the cure, for patient zero. Ukraine needs help, of course. But he made a sales pitch for his nation of startup warriors who now lead the world in modern warfare technology.

Ukraine has “Freya” a missile programme it is developing alongside ten countries including the UK, Canada, France, and Germany. Poland has been invited on board too.

“Ukraine is building its security so that we reinforce our role of a real provider of security and help others get the protection that has already worked for us and that can truly reduce the space for starting and spreading wars in the world,” he insisted.

In short - Ukraine’s problem is now global - but Kyiv has the jab.