British Prime Minister Liz Truss told the United Nations on Wednesday that the organization’s founding principles were crumbling as a result of aggression by authoritarian states and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using “saber-rattling threats” to cover up his botched invasion of Ukraine.

In her first address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday night, Truss praised the late Queen Elizabeth II as a symbol of all the U.N. stands for and described the conflict in Ukraine as a battle for “our ideals and the security of the whole world.”

Putin reportedly mentioned his nuclear arsenal when he said that he was calling up reserve soldiers and would use all available means to protect Russia. In response, Truss accused Putin of “desperately trying to excuse” his actions his catastrophic failures.”

She claimed that by sending even more reserve soldiers to a dreadful fate, he was “doubling down.” “He is frantically attempting to uphold democracy for a government devoid of liberties or human rights. Additionally, he continues to make false assertions and bellicose threats.

“This won’t function. On the same day that Truss appeared at the U.N., Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a video address to the international audience. “The international alliance is strong — Ukraine is powerful,” Truss declared.

Truss mentioned the queen, whose burial was attended by many of the international leaders presently gathered at the UN, in a speech articulating her view of foreign policy in a world turned upside down by Russia’s invasion.

The postwar ideals that served as the foundation for this organisation, according to her, were embodied by the queen. She claimed that the late king or queen, who reigned for 70 years before passing away last month, “transcended difference and healed divide.”

Truss cited the queen’s 1957 address to the U.N., in which she stated that “the peoples of the globe expect the United Nations to persevere in its endeavours” to put an end to war and other crises.

The queen, according to Truss, “warned it was essential not just to have great principles but also to have the political will to deliver on them. We must now demonstrate that will

In her first speech outside of Canada since taking office two weeks ago, Truss praised the UN’s foundational ideals while urging the formation of new multilateral coalitions to counter the impact of repressive governments.

According to her, “authoritarian nations are undermining stability and security around the world” as geopolitics enters a new phase. That was a direct blow at both Russia and China, whose expanding influence among emerging countries worries the United States and its allies greatly.

Truss argued that instead of “exerting influence through debt, aggression, and gaining control of essential infrastructure and minerals,” the world’s democratic powers should cultivate “strategic ties based on mutual benefit and trust” with developing countries.

She also demanded that the West respond more forcefully to Russia’s invasion. In support of nations attacked by “the economic aggression of authoritarian regimes,” she called for sanctions against Russia and said that “the G-7 and our like-minded allies should act as an economic NATO.”

She encouraged countries to identify substitutes for Russian gas and oil as well as to safeguard supply networks for everything from food to minerals. She asserted that in order to defeat authoritarian aggression and triumph in this new period of strategic competition, the free world needs such economic endurance and power.

In reference to NATO and the military alliance of northern European countries known as the Joint Expeditionary Force, whose significance has grown in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Truss claimed that post-Brexit Britain was “creating new connections throughout the world.”

She also cited trade aspirations with Indo-Pacific and Gulf states as well as closer ties with “fellow democracies like India, Indonesia, and South Africa” as evidence that Britain, which is no longer a member of the European Union, views the rest of the world, particularly Asia, as a political and economic priority.

The speech essentially serves as a brazen declaration of the incoming prime minister’s worldview. However, Truss is expected to face backlash for equating the struggle for democracy and freedom around the world with her own aspirations to alter the British economy.

Truss stated that displaying the strength of democracy “begins with development and establishing a British economy that rewards business and encourages investment,” adding that “our commitment to optimism and progress must begin at home.”

For Truss, a conservative free marketeer, that entails lowering company and individual taxes as well as business regulations.

Tax cuts, according to opponents, favour the wealthy over the poor and would do little to relieve the cost-of-living issue that has caused U.K. inflation to reach 10%, the highest level in forty years. This crisis is largely the result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the economic damage, Truss declared that Britain is “totally” committed to defending Ukraine.

This is a pivotal time in our history, the history of this organisation, and the history of freedom, she declared.