Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya, speaks throughout a Standard Assembly Emergency Special Session on Ukraine at the United Nations in New York on March 23, 2022
TIMOTHY A. CLARY
Text measurement
Adds estimates, track record
The United Nations Normal Assembly on Thursday adopted by an frustrating majority a non-binding resolution that needs an fast halt to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
At the world wide body’s headquarters in New York, 140 nations around the world voted in favor, 38 abstained and just five opposed the measure, with applause ringing out afterward.
The vote came soon after the adoption of a identical non-binding resolution on March 2 that demanded Russia right away cease its use of force — a vote that was accredited by nearly the exact same margin.
Ukraine place ahead the new resolution, originally well prepared by France and Mexico and addressing the “humanitarian effects” of Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor, on Wednesday at an crisis session of the Common Assembly.
A competing text by South Africa, which hardly ever stated Russia by name, received 50 votes for, 67 in opposition to and 36 abstentions, and was consequently not adopted.
The authorized resolution names Moscow and “calls for an fast cessation of the hostilities by the Russian Federation in opposition to Ukraine, in unique of any attacks from civilians and civilian objects.”
The similar five countries voted from the resolution Thursday and March 2: Russia, Syria, North Korea, Belarus and Eritrea.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, welcomed the “powerful majority” supporting the resolution.
The countries manufactured apparent that “Russia bears sole responsibility for the grave humanitarian crisis and violence in Ukraine,” she explained.
“As President Biden has mentioned plainly, (Russia’s president) Vladimir Putin will not see victory in Ukraine. And we listened to now that he will not see it listed here in New York possibly.”
France’s UN envoy Nicolas de Riviere, speaking on behalf of the European Union, praised the resolution as a “incredibly solid sign” despatched by the General Assembly which “recollects the urgency of placing an conclude to the humanitarian catastrophe” and which asks Russia to halt its aggression devoid of hold off.
President Joe Biden and his Western counterparts collected Thursday in Brussels for NATO, G7 and EU summits, with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky also collaborating by videolink.
On Wednesday Russia submitted a resolution to the UN Protection Council on the “humanitarian problem” in Ukraine, but it was not adopted.
Moscow ally China, which has but to condemn the invasion, joined Russia in voting in favor. But the Protection Council’s 13 other member states pointedly abstained in solidarity around what diplomats claimed was the text’s unacceptable foundation.
Previously this week UN Secretary Common Antonio Guterres shipped a chopping evaluation of the invasion, calling the war “unwinnable” for Russia.