As you have noted, the member countries of the United Nations gathered Monday afternoon in the historic General Assembly amphitheater in New York to urgently debate a resolution condemning the annexation of Ukrainian regions through Moscow.
This text co-drafted by the European Union and presented by Ukraine should be put to the vote on Wednesday. By this means, Westerners hope to demonstrate that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is isolated on the international scene.
However, it was the deadly strikes on Monday morning that monopolized the session: the representatives of the two warring countries crossed swords in an electric atmosphere.
“Russia has once again proven that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible way”, hammered the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya. His Russian counterpart, Vassily Nebenzia, responded to him by comparing the kyiv regime to the “most outrageous of terrorist organizations”.
Prior to the General Assembly, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “deeply shocked”had denounced the Russian bombardments by speaking of“a new unacceptable escalation of the war” including civilians “pay the highest price”. Several days before these bombardments, the UN had decided to bring the file of the annexations of Ukrainian regions to its General Assembly – where each of the 193 members has a vote, without veto – after Russia had blocked a similar text in the Security Council. , September 30.
The draft text, consulted by Agence France-Presse, condemns the annexations “illegal” of territories located in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson after “so-called referendums” and stresses that these actions have not “no validity” under international law. He also asks that no one recognize these annexations and calls for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops.
Russia had retaliated over the weekend in a scathing letter to all member states, attacking “Western delegations” whose shares “have nothing to do with the defense of international law”. Monday’s session was also disrupted by a procedural battle launched by Moscow to obtain, in vain, a vote on the resolution by secret ballot.
As a reminder, during the vote in the Security Council, no country sided with Russia, but China, India, Brazil and Gabon abstained.