A result greeted by a round of applause. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Wednesday 2 March “demands that Russia immediately stop using force against Ukraine”, in a vote overwhelmingly approved by 141 countries out of the Organization’s 193 members. Five countries voted against: Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. In addition, 35 countries, including China, abstained.
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The resolution, punctuating more than two days of interventions at the UN rostrum, calls on Moscow to withdraw “immediately, completely and unconditionally all its military forces” from Ukraine and “condemns Russia’s decision to step up the alert of its nuclear forces”.
Steered by the European Union in coordination with Ukraine, the text, which benefited from around a hundred co-sponsorships, “deplores” also “in the strongest terms Russia’s aggression against Ukraine” and affirms “its attachment to sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of this country, including “its territorial waters”.
Entitled “Aggression against Ukraine”, the resolution also calls for granting humanitarian aid unhindered access and “deplores the involvement” of Belarus in the attack on Ukraine. The Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, had denounced just before at the UN rostrum a “genocide” going on in his country.Russia, for its part, through the voice of its counterpart Vassily Nebenzia, defended itself from attacking civilian targets.
The resolution in the Assembly was inspired by a text rejected last week in the UN Security Council because of a veto posed by Russia. Within the General Assembly, the right of veto, the privilege of the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom), does not exist. Its resolutions are not legally binding like those of the Council, but they have a strong political value depending on the number of countries that approve them.