- Russia does not care about humankind.

They don't care about whether people around the world have enough food to eat.

Their withdrawing from the grain deal sends a chilling message to everyone around the world.

[mellow music] - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we're coming to you from inside the most powerful diplomatic body in the world, or at least the biggest, the chamber of the United Nations Security Council at the UN headquarters in my own New York City.

In August, the United States takes over the council presidency.

High on the agenda: food security, human rights, and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

But how well does the Security Council, created after World War II, reflect the geopolitical realities of today?

Can a UN body credibly maintain peace and stability when one of its permanent members started a war in the middle of Europe?

Is diplomacy broken or can the UN's 193 member states work together to solve any of the world's most urgent crises?

I'm talking about all that and a lot more with the United States Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- God, if I had a nickle for every time someone tried to move to Georgia after being conscripted.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by: - [Narrator] Cox Enterprises is proud to support "GZERO."

We're working to improve lives in the areas of: communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

- [Announcer] Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, and: [gentle music] [logo whooshes] [concerned music] [council members clamoring] - [Ian] In 1964, a fictional president famously said: - Gentlemen, you can't fight in here.

This is the war room.

- That's from "Dr. Strangelove," Stanley Kubrick's classic satirizing Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation.

But in the real world, 60 years later, they're still fighting in the war room, the UN Security Council.

- It's too late, my dear colleagues to speak about deescalation.

Too late.

The Russian president declared the war on the record.

Should I play the video of your president?

- [Ian] Ukraine's Ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, delivered an impassioned speech on the council floor at the very moment that Russia began invading his country.

The president of the council at the time happened to be Russia and Kyslytsya could not contain his contempt for the irony of the situation.

- There is no purgatory for war criminals.

They go straight to hell, Ambassador.

- So how did it come to this?

the Security Council is a crucial organ of the United Nations tasked with promoting and maintaining peace globally.

It has the power to pass binding resolutions, and there are 15 member states, 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms, and then five permanent members known as the P5, including Russia.

To understand why Russia has a permanent seat, we have to go back to the creation of the UN in 1945.

The institutions that defined the world order in the years between the World wars were eroded.

I'm looking right at you, League of Nations.

So there was an urgent need to build new ones.

And when you create new global systems, guess who gets to do it?

The countries with the most power.

[triumphant fanfare music] - [Narrator] Here, leaders of the United Nations, representing all but a fraction of the Earth's population, are laying the foundations of international security in the post-war world.

- So the Americans and their allies built the UN at the end of World War II, including the Security Council and the P5, the permanent members who have veto power to block any resolution the council passes, they are the winners of that war.

The U.S., UK, France, China, and the Soviet Union.

Problem is the balance of global power changed very quickly.

Former allies became adversaries.

By 1948, that's just three years later, the Berlin blockade happened.

The Soviets cutting some 2.5 million people off from electricity, food, and medical supplies effectively starting the Cold War.

At that point, the allies were probably thinking, "Wow, wish we hadn't given the Soviets a permanent veto on the Security Council," but it was too late.

The council was created and fundamentally broken all within three years.

Since 1945, the veto has been used more than 250 times, most frequently by Russia, followed by the United States.

P5 has blocked resolutions on human rights, terrorism, war, chemical weapons, and even climate change.

80 years after its creation, it's clear the council does not reflect today's geopolitical reality.

- The Security Council that retains the power of veto in the hands of a few will still lead us to war.

[explosion booms] - [Ian] Russia's invasion of Ukraine has ramped up calls for reform to a fever pitch, and some powerful member states might finally be willing to listen.

- The time has come for this institution to become more inclusive so they can better respond to the needs of today's world.

- President Biden has called for increasing both the number of permanent and non-permanent members, including permanent seats for countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

There's no question that we need a more effective and inclusive body to protect international peace in the modern era.

But can the UN's 193 member states put aside their differences to create it?

That remains to be seen.

Here to talk about that and many other matters of security, diplomacy, and the United States' role on the global stage is U.S. ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

So good to see you.

- You too.

How are you?

- Doing very well.

- It's great to see you here.

- Thanks for joining me.

- It's amazing seeing this room empty.

- Empty.

- Yes.

- We're going to fill it.

You and me.

- All right.

I'm ready to do that.

- Please.

Thank you.

I already took your seat for a couple moments and said I was taking Russia out of the Security Council, so... - Oh, you should have sat behind Russia's seat [Ian laughs] and then remove their placard.

- Yeah, no, I can't do that.

Have you ever done that?

- I have never done that.

- You've never done that.

You want to do it now?

- It's an idea.

- You want to do it now?

- Oh, we want to cause a whole- - I will so take a picture of you moving- - Oh, I bet you would.

- I would do that.

- [laughs] Bet you would.

- That would be pretty cool.

- I won't do that.

- Okay, fine.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, so wonderful to have you here.

- I'm delighted to be here.

This is my everyday workplace.

- It is.

Right here.

- Yes.

- And you are about to take over the presidency.

- I'm about to take over the presidency of the Security Council from my colleague and friend, Barbara Woodward, the UK PR, who has been chairing the council for the month of July.

- During the month tell me, I mean, just give me a couple of the things that you feel like you really want to get done.

What's the signature for LTG?

- Well, the signature for me, it has been my signature since the day I arrived in New York, and that is to deal with issues of food insecurity.

So we will be talking on the 3rd of August about how we end famine, how we address issues of hunger.

We will call out Russia, of course, for their pulling out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative for their tax on food, granaries and food infrastructure, wheat infrastructure in Ukraine.

We will call out Russia for vetoing the humanitarian mandate that provides food for the people of Syria.

But we will also look at things like climate change and the impact that that has had on food insecurity.

We will look at the impact of COVID.

I call this as kind of the three Cs of food insecurity.

It's COVID, it's climate change, it's conflict, and people have now added on the cost of food because of Russia's war in Ukraine.

As this goes on, people in Africa and the Middle East will begin to see the cost and feel the cost of this horrible action.

by the Russians.

- And as you say, it's on the back of three years of COVID.

- Yes.

- Where I mean the numbers of people that are dying of hunger.

The number of people that are food stressed was already going up year after year after year.

So this is the top priority for your month.

- This is the top priority for my month.

But clearly there are other issues.

We will be dealing with Ukraine.

We will be addressing issues of conflict elsewhere in the world.

I'm concerned about the situation right now in Sudan.

It's not been getting a lot of press, but the fighting continues.

The carnage continues, the two generals continue to fight.

I'm worried about the situation- - Sudan does not have a legitimate government right now?

- There is a fight going on between two generals over who will be in power.

- What role, credibly, do you think the Security Council can have?

How can we move the ball towards peace and stability in that country?

- The Security Council has a responsibility to deal with peace and security around the globe.

What is happening in Sudan should be on the agenda of the Security Council.

Having these issues brought to the Security Council is always hard.

Countries fight being brought to the Security Council, and the reason they fight is that they know they ought to be considered.

And the people in Sudan want to hear from the international community.

They want to hear from the Security Council that we have not forgotten them, that we care about the human rights violations that are being committed, that we care about the large numbers of women who are being raped, that we care about the thousands of people who've been forced from their homes and forced across the border into Chad and other neighboring countries.

They need to hear that the world has not turned their backs on what is happening in their country.

And that's what we can do in the Security Council.

- And they need commitments of aid.

They need commitments of the police forces.

- The humanitarian situation is incredibly bad.

Getting assistance to people in Chad who've been forced across the border, I think, is key.

Getting assistance inside Sudan for people who have been displaced from their homes is important as well.

So those are things that we want to address for sure.

- So it's good for the audience to understand what we're talking about here in the Security Council.

And your job is to deal with those places where rule of law has broken down, where we don't have security for people, where human rights are not being respected.

I want to ask the tough question right now, which is: should Russia be a member of the Security Council?

- Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, but they are not living up to what is required of a permanent member.

They have carried out an unprovoked attack on a neighbor.

What they are doing undermines everything that the UN stands for.

It undermines the charter of the United Nations, and they are undermining the work of this council by carrying out this unprovoked war on Ukraine.

That said, I will say it again, they are a permanent member of the Security Council.

- No, there's nothing you can do about it.

I understand.

There's no process, but if you could wave a wand and get rid of that seat... - It would've already been waved.

- It would've been waved a long time ago, right?

- Yeah.

- On February 25th, you would've waved it.

- I think on February 25th, we were still trying to get the Russians to do the right thing.

And I think on February 25th, even after the attack started, we were still trying to use diplomatic means to get them back into the right place.

But now, two years into this, we know that that is not possible.

- You are the most senior official in the United States that has regular direct contact with a high-level diplomat from the Russian Federation.

You're absolutely critical note in that regard.

What's that like?

What's the nature of that engagement?

How constructive can it be in this environment?

- It's extraordinarily contentious because I don't believe he has the power to make decisions about where his government is going to make decisions that are important to us in the Security Council.

So when we have contentious negotiations, he always has to go back to Moscow.

But he is a channel for us to convey messages such as conveying a very strong message about the arrest of American citizens.

So I've raised the arrest of Evan, of Paul-/ - "The Wall Street Journal" journalist.

- Yeah, the Wall Street- - The former Marine, yeah.

- Yes.

And Paul Whelan.

And as you know, during the Russian presidency of the Security Council, I brought Paul Whelan's sister here and had her stand so that the Russian foreign minister could see her presence here in the Security Council.

- And he's still in prison now?

- And he is still in prison now.

So I do use this relationship, if you want to call it a relationship, but it's a relationship of fact because we sit in the council to raise issues of concern.

- Now, the Black Sea grain deal was, I would argue, the most successful piece of diplomacy that has been accomplished over this 500+ days of war.

It has now been unilaterally withdrawn from by the Russian government.

And further than that, actively targeting the Ukrainian agricultural infrastructure.

- What else can and/or should be done to respond to this?

- Well, first of all, the Russian action is evidence to the world that Russia does not care about humankind.

They don't care about whether people around the world have enough food to eat.

Their withdrawing from the grain deal and then attacking the agricultural infrastructure in Ukraine sends a chilling message to everyone around the world.

And they have been- - They're telling the Global South, "We will blow up your food."

- They're telling the Global South- - Is that correct?

- That we don't care whether your people eat or not.

And so that's a message that I hope that is being understood and accepted because we don't have to say it anymore.

Russia is saying it through their actions.

We have called them out.

We are condemning them in no uncertain terms.

We're looking at other ways that we can hold them accountable.

But we remain very, very much behind Ukraine's efforts to defend itself to fight Russia.

We have continued to provide them with every bit of assistance that we can provide to them so that they can defend themselves.

- Now, when you say looking at other ways that they might be held accountable, I mean, theoretically, what kinds of actions might those be?

- You know, President Putin was indicted by the ICC.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

The International Criminal Court, yeah.

- And it is important that that indictment is recognized around the world.

- Stopped him from going to South Africa for the BRICS Summit, for example.

- Russia is isolated, and we need to ensure that that isolation continues.

We are doing everything possible to hold them accountable here in the Security Council, but also broadly in the General Assembly.

So when they veto resolutions, they have to go in front of the world to explain why they are vetoing resolution such as the Syrian resolution two weeks ago.

- Have you seen a shift?

I mean, in the early days of this war, NATO very closely held together, the G7 very closely held together.

The Global South, not so much, much more neutrality.

Do you see that playing out here at the Security Council?

You seeing the Global South starting to say, "Okay, enough is enough here.

We've got to do something about this conflict."?

- We saw 13 countries, including the three African countries, support the resolution on Syria and condemn what Russia has been doing as it relates to Ukraine.

And I know some countries are conflicted.

They want to take a neutral stance, but when you look at the countries that actually support Russia, the countries that vote with Russia, they're... We know who they are, six, seven with Russia itself.

- Belarus.

- Yes.

Belarus.

- Syria.

- Syria, Iran, China.

We know those countries.

And so they have not been able to increase the countries that are voting with them.

And they have not been able to win any support broadly either here in the Security Council or in the General Assembly.

They have to use their veto power.

They can't win anything without using their own veto power.

- Now is China now pretty much a given guaranteed vote for the Russians, no matter what?

I mean, certainly their public position in talking about recognition of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which would include Crimea, Xi Jinping reaching out directly to Zelenskyy, they did have what seems to be a fairly constructive bilateral conversation together, though it was late.

How would you gauge that?

- You know, this war is not in anyone's interest.

It's not in China's interest and China knows it's not- - Look, it's not in Russia's interest, but that's a different story.

- It's not in Russia's interest either, but China knows it's not in its interest.

When we've had votes in the Security Council, many times the Chinese will abstain.

And we've seen that happen over and over again.

They abstained on the resolution on Syria, for example, that was put forth by the pen holders, Switzerland and Brazil.

They did vote with Russia on Russia's resolution.

So I see them as conflicted, but I would not put them fully behind Russia's efforts in Ukraine.

- Last question for you.

The United States is here, and you are here.

Your history has been so wrapped up with the promotion of human rights.

How much harder is it for you to do that when the United States is facing such a challenging and divisive political environment at home?

- You know, one thing of many things that is great about our country is that we are able to acknowledge our weaknesses.

We can acknowledge our internal conflicts and at the same time defend the rights of others.

And that's what I do here in New York.

I don't come to apologize for what is happening in the United States.

I talk about what is happening here, but people also want to hear the United States' voice on what is happening elsewhere in the world.

And if we're not talking about human rights elsewhere in the world, no one else will.

I know that when we were not sitting on the Human Rights Council, when we were not exerting our leadership here in New York, what I was told when I arrived here in February of 2021 is that people missed us and they needed us.

They needed our presence, they needed our voice, and they appreciated that we were back.

And so that gives me a just a clear path, a mission to make sure our voice is heard on all of the issues related to human rights, on issues related to humanitarian assistance, which is part of my background, to bring issues that support people, to bring the people into this space.

I travel a lot.

I talk to NGOs.

I talk to people who have been the victims of violence and the victims of persecution.

And I bring their voices here, and they appreciate that.

And I know that others appreciate that they can depend on the United States to be the voice of the people.

- Linda, the U.S. created this body after World War II.

Is that something that should be one of our most proud accomplishments?

- It is certainly one of our most proud accomplishments.

And I always quote Madeline Albright, the late Madeline Albright.

It's hard for me even to call her the late Madeline Albright, who said, "If we didn't have the United Nations, we would create it."

This is an entity, an organization, the United Nations, that is an important part of our history, but it's also an important part of our futures.

- Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

So good to see you.

- You too.

Thank you.

[gentle ethereal music] - And now Puppet Regime where when God closes the door, Putin opens a window.

- All right, let's get this nightmare started.

Hi.

Hello.

Welcome to Putin' it out there.

Your pipeline to self-realization.

Today's first quarter is Jim from Astoria.

Jim, your life.

Put it out there.

- [Jim] Hi Vladimir.

First time, long time.

I love your work.

- Yeah, so do I.

What's going on?

- [Jim] Well, I recently asked all my employees to attend a work party this weekend.

Mandatory.

But Pete from accounting doesn't want to go.

- Jim, I am confused.

You have made party attendance mandatory and he still will not go.

- [Jim] No.

He even says he has a job offer in Atlanta that he'll take if we force him.

- God, if I had a nickel for every time someone tried to move to Georgia after being conscripted.

- [Jim] Tell me about it.

Well, what should I do?

- Well, Jim, have you considered, I don't know, having him fall out of a window?

- [Jim] A what?

- I mean, you've got windows at the office, da?

- [Jim] Yeah, but what the- - Well, he can just, like, fall out of one.

- [Jim] And then what?

- Then you have your company party and everyone is there except Pete from accounting who is not there.

- [Jim] [sighs] Boy, Pete really is a pain in the neck.

All right, I'll give it a shot.

- A shot.

Jim, you're wilding.

That's literally overkill.

I think just the window will do.

♪ Puppet Regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you see, or even if you don't, but you say, "Hey, could you take over another major multinational institution?"

Yes, we can.

Check us out at gzeromedia.com.

[energetic jazz music] [energetic jazz music continues] [energetic jazz music continues] [ethereal music] - [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by: - [Narrator] Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of: communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead and: [gentle music] [bright music]