Et is the message Western countries wanted: 143 of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the resolution on Wednesday condemning and invalidating the Russian annexation of four Ukrainian territories. Although not binding under international law, it is a clear signal to Russia that the international alliance against Vladimir Putin is growing with every month of war and every war crime in Ukraine. The vote in New York was used as a test: How war-weary is the global community? How big is international solidarity with Ukraine really?
When the eleventh emergency session of the United Nations, which first met in February after the Russian attack on Ukraine, met again earlier in the week, Moscow had just launched heavy rocket attacks on civilian installations in Kyiv and other cities. UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke of a “further unacceptable escalation of the war”. In New York, Russia lamented the “division of the UN”, describing the resolution as a provocation by the West. A few minutes before the vote, UN ambassador Wassili Nebensya accused the Americans and NATO of only being interested in border violations when their own interests are at stake. For example, President Joe Biden has promised aid to Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. No territory is sacred to the United States.
“Threat to World Peace”
But in the end, what German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had predicted prevailed in New York. “Russia’s strategy of forcible annexation and nuclear blackmail is a threat to world peace,” Baerbock wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. She knows from many colleagues that this view is “shared all over the world”. With 143 votes in favor of the resolution, the UN General Assembly surpassed the result from early March, which was used as a yardstick for success. Immediately after the war began, the General Assembly had condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine by 141 votes. Because the horror was still fresh, a particularly large number of states spoke out in favor of the resolution at the time, diplomats speculated, and gave the current vote around a hundred votes as a success – a forecast that has now been far exceeded. A two-thirds majority of the votes cast was required for success.
The five no votes on Wednesday came from Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Nicaragua, none of them surprising. China, India and South Africa did not deviate from their previous course of not publicly taking a stance against Russia, although all three countries expressed “appalled” by the escalation on Wednesday. “We must not close the door on dialogue,” China’s representative said ahead of the vote, condemning a “cold war mentality.” The world must be protected from division, and no country should be pressured into choosing a side. “This draft will not help,” he explained the abstention of the Chinese.
The Indian UN representative also called for more dialogue and peace talks, saying that this was “the only answer”. India supported all steps that de-escalated. However, many urgent problems were not addressed in the draft, which is why we are abstaining. Before the vote, India had refused to publicize its decision for “political and rational reasons”.
At the end of September, Russia vetoed a similar proposal for the annexation of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Cherson and Zaporizhia regions in the UN Security Council; it would have been binding under international law. But here, too, two-thirds of the 15 members spoke out in favor of condemning the annexation. In addition to the Russian veto, Brazil, China, India and Gabon abstained. No state has a right of veto in the UN General Assembly.
The vote is also a success for the United Nations as an institution, whose urgently needed reform has been discussed for years. During Wednesday’s debate, France’s representative said it could be summed up in one sentence: “Do we want to defend the principles of the UN Charter?” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said it was about the “foundations of this institution.” On Tuesday, she stressed that the resolution was not about “competition between Russia and the United States,” nor about “partisanship,” but about defense of the UN Charter.
