British Foreign Secretary David Lammy directly accused Russian ruler Vladimir Putin of running a “mafia state” and compared him to a slave owner in a fiery speech to the UN Security Council.
Lammy slammed the Russian leader during a New York meeting on Tuesday, telling the Russian representative, “We know who you are,” he said (video).
The British minister criticized Putin’s behavior during the invasion of Ukraine, recalling the days of slavery and accusing the Russian government of “roughshod over international law.”
“Your invasion is in your own interests. Yours alone. To expand your mafia state into a mafia empire. An empire built on corruption,” the British Foreign Secretary said.
“Mr President, I speak not only as a Briton, as a Londoner, and as a foreign secretary. But I say to the Russian representative, on his phone as I speak, that I stand here also as a Black man whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa, at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of the enslaved,” David Lammy said.
“Imperialism: I know it when I see it. And I will call it out for what it is,” the British Foreign Secretary stated.
Lemmy’s speech comes as Ukraine continues intense diplomatic efforts to gain permission to use Western long-range missiles, including Britain’s Storm Shadow, to hit military targets deep inside Russia, including airfields used by Putin’s troops to launch missile attacks at Ukraine.
The Times wrote that the United States and the United Kingdom are preparing to give Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory, but they won’t make the announcement public to give Russia a sense of surprise.
