In fiery speech, Ukraine's Zelenskyy implores UN Security Council to hold Russia to account

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an impassioned address to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, likened Russian atrocities in his homeland to Nazi war crimes, calling for Nuremberg-style tribunals to hold Moscow accountable.

“They shot and killed women outside their houses. They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies,” Zelenskyy said in a video appearance before the Security Council, a day after an emotional visit to the ravaged town of Bucha, outside the capital, Kyiv.

“They cut off limbs, slashed throats, raped women in front of their children,” the Ukrainian leader said in his most forceful excoriation to date of the Russian invasion.

In a perhaps risky strategy of sharply criticizing the body from which he is seeking help, Zelenskyy issued a stark challenge to world institutions such as the United Nations to make sweeping changes to the global security architecture, asking sardonically at one point: “Are you ready to close the U.N.?”

“It is obvious that the key institutions of the world ... simply cannot work effectively,” said the 44-year-old president, who has won worldwide accolades for presiding over his compatriots’ fierce and