“It is clear that Russia is alone. This is the message sent to Vladimir Putin after a historic vote at the UN where even Russia’s allies abstained.
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Only Eritrea voted against the resolution that Kyiv had put on the table of the Human Rights Council (HRC).
“Today the HRC adopted a historic resolution,” Ukrainian Ambassador Yevheniia Filipenko told reporters. The message to Putin was clear: you are internationally isolated and the whole world is against you. »
“Members of the international community stand with Ukraine, and it is clear that Russia is alone,” added US Ambassador to the UN Sheba Crocker.
The resolution at the HRC thus benefited from the support of Western countries, but also of many other capitals around the world.
Investigators will thus take care to “collect, collate and analyze the evidence attesting to […] violations” of human rights and international humanitarian law resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Less allies
Venezuela and Cuba, usual allies of Moscow, as well as Beijing abstained, while they had voted against holding this urgent debate on the invasion.
These flip-flops essentially make it possible to avoid damaging diplomatic relations with other powers or even to protect economic agreements, observes Sami Aoun, director of the Observatory on the Middle East and North Africa (OMAN ).
However, this will be insufficient to slow down the ardor of President Vladimir Putin, adds the political scientist.
“Like all tyrants, all despots, he is a personality who does not accept defeat, and he will continue to move forward,” said the professor emeritus.
Russian front
The Russian ambassador to the UN, Gennady Gatilov, also refuses to worry about the loss of support on the international scene.
“I don’t think the vote reflects all the nuances of the positions of Brazil and other countries that voted for or abstained,” he said at a press conference.
“I wouldn’t say we’re isolated,” Gatilov added, decrying pressure from Washington and its allies to get other capitals to come around to their position.
In order to justify its support for the Kremlin, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Eritrea judged that Ukraine was above all the “victim” and the “scapegoat” of the countries which sought “to tighten the noose on Russia” .
Earlier in the week, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that Russia “immediately stop using force against Ukraine”.
— With Agence France-Presse