Six months since the entry of Russian troops into the territory of Ukraine, which coincided with the 31st anniversary of the country’s independence, the UN marked a discussion in the Security Council and a joint statement demanding Russia to “immediately and unconditionally withdraw its forces and military equipment.” This document initiated by Kyiv was supported by 57 countries and the European Union. The fact that less than a third of the 193 UN member states joined the statement was considered by the Russian Foreign Ministry as evidence that international support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia is declining.
Two dates coincided on August 24 – the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and six months since the start of the “special military operation.” The country was congratulated on the holiday, expressed sympathy and support for the Ukrainian people. Even Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, who heard a lot of accusations against Russia at a meeting of the UN Security Council, admitted that “Ukrainians are having a hard time today.” And he immediately laid the responsibility for this “on the Kyiv regime, which came to power in 2014 as a result of an anti-constitutional coup carried out with the help of a number of Western states.”
“Representative of the regime” Volodymyr Zelensky made contact with New York via video format. In his speech, he announced the submission of a resolution to the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (GA) in September, by which “Russia must be held accountable for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.”
However, while the matter did not come to a resolution, Ukraine initiated a “Joint Statement following the results of six months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”, to which everyone could join. As a result, 57 countries and one organization, the European Union, signed the condemning document. In addition to the EU, the US and the UK, the signatories included the Bahamas, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Moldova and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The authors of the document expressed regret over Russia’s failure to comply with the UN General Assembly resolutions of March 2 and 24 and “the inability to immediately stop the use of force against Ukraine.” The statement recalled that Art. Article 2 of the UN Charter obliges states “to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state and to settle their international disputes by peaceful means.”
“Today we reaffirm our solidarity with the people of Ukraine, pay tribute to all those who sacrificed their lives for the independence of Ukraine, and express our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of the ongoing aggression against Ukraine,” the document says.
At the end of the statement, the signatories assured of their commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and demanded that Russia cease hostilities and “immediately and unconditionally” withdraw its forces and military equipment from the territory of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Moscow drew attention to the fact that less than a third of the 193 UN member states signed the statement. In particular, countries such as China and India did not join it.
“Everyone began to realize that the situation is much more serious than the use of Ukraine by Western liberal dictatorships in anti-Russian ideology … Now everyone has realized that this is not a local situation, this is not history, as they are now trying to tell everyone as “just some kind of region,” and that Western liberal dictatorships have taken up the redistribution of the world, using Ukraine,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on the situation.
The next measurement of the attitude of the world community to the Ukrainian crisis will take place during the voting on a new resolution condemning Russia at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, announced by Vladimir Zelensky. The current joint statement did not imply a mandatory expression of a position from member states – it could only be supported, but it was impossible to abstain or oppose, no one brought the text up for discussion, its content could not be publicly disputed before adoption, and so on. In the end, it could simply be overlooked and ignored without any geopolitical losses, and before the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Serhiy Kyslytsya read out this statement, the existence of this document was not known to the general international community at all.
With resolutions, the situation is somewhat different. Representatives of countries present in the hall of the UN General Assembly should express their position in one way or another. Thus, the March 2 document on “aggression against Ukraine”, condemning Russia and demanding the withdrawal of troops and the cancellation of the decision to recognize the DPR and LPR, was supported by 135 states, 35 abstained, and five, including the Russian Federation, opposed. The March 24 resolution on the “humanitarian consequences of the aggression against Ukraine” gained 140 votes in support, with the same five against and 38 abstentions. It is noteworthy that the April 7 resolution on the suspension of Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council, which, unlike its predecessors, had real consequences, received only 93 votes in support. As a result, it was adopted anyway, because there were fewer opponents of the document – 24, and abstentions – 58.