Zelenskyy praised Japan for becoming the first Asian country to sanction Russia and asked Tokyo to go even further. He said trade with Russia should be banned and that foreign companies should withdraw from the Ukrainian market in order to prevent their investments from flowing into Russia.

During his approximately 10-minute speech, Zelenskyy, appearing in his now trademark olive-colored top, also criticized Russian attacks on Chernobyl, currently entombed after the 1986 explosion, saying Russia turned a nearby nuclear waste storage site into a battlefield. Imagine, he said, how long it will take to clean up the situation there when the war is over.

Zelenskyy, speaking through an interpreter who translated his Ukrainian into Japanese, also raised an alarm about the possibility of Russia's use of nuclear and chemical weapons.