This Friday marks one year since the troops of Vladimir Putin decided to illegally invade Ukraine, so the UN General Assembly will rule on a resolution supported by kyiv and its allies calling for a “just and lasting” peace and the cessation of hostilities.
“It is a defining moment to show support, unity and solidarity”, said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kulebaon the first day of this debate on the Russian intervention that began on February 24, 2022.
“Never in recent history has the line between good and evil been so clear. A country simply wants to survive. The other wants to kill and destroy”, he added.
kyiv and its allies hope that the text, put to a vote at the end of this second day, will obtain at least as many votes as an October resolution in which 143 countries condemned the Russian annexations from various Ukrainian regions.
The draft resolution, non-binding, “stresses the need to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter as soon as possible”.
Also reaffirms attachment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine, demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces and calls for a cessation of hostilities.
The UN Secretary General, Anthony Guterres, joined the call for peace by criticizing on Wednesday an invasion that is “an affront to our collective conscience”.
“The possible consequences of the escalation of the conflict are a clear danger and are already there“, he pointed.
In the image of President Vladimir Putin, who this week accused the West of wanting to “finish off” Russia and promised to “systematically” comply with the objectives of the invasion, the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzialashed out at kyiv’s allies.
“In their desire to inflict defeat on Russia in any way possible, they are not only ready to sacrifice Ukraine, are ready to drag the whole world into the abyss of war“, he claimed.
It’s not a question of “The West vs. Russia””, replied the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell. “This illegal war affects the whole world: the North, the South, the East and the West”, he recalled.
The three resolutions linked to the Russian invasion voted in the General Assembly in the last year included between 140 and 143 votes in favor, less than 40 abstentions and five countries that consistently voted against (Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea).
Another somewhat different resolution in April, which suspended Russia from Human Rights Councilreceived less consensus: 93 votes in favour, 24 against and 58 abstentions.
For its part, China, which abstained in all these votes, tried to act as a mediator on Wednesday by presenting its vision for “a political solution” to the conflict in Moscow.
The head of Chinese diplomacy, wang yiwas received in the Kremlin after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
“The Chinese interlocutors shared with us their reflections on the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, as well as their proposals for a political solution.”, but “no separate peace plan was discussed,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
This week was marked by Putin’s speech reaffirming his intention to keep up the invasion of ukraine and announcing his withdrawal from nuclear disarmament treaty New Start signed in 2010 with the United States.
US President Joe Biden told the network on Wednesday abc from Warsaw that the decision was “A big mistake”, but qualified that there were no indications that Putin “is thinking of using nuclear weapons.”
Internally, after a year of invasion, Tensions in Russia between the military command and the Wagner paramilitary group are becoming more and more notoriouswho are participating in an offensive stopped by the Ukrainian resistance and Western support.
As a sign of these tensions, the head of the mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, asked the population on Wednesday to pressure the army to deliver ammunition to his mercenaries deployed in the battle for Bakhmut, one of the hot spots on the front.
(With information from AFP)
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