An overwhelming majority of countries remains for the moment welded behind Ukraine. Beijing has officially brought closer to Moscow.
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A overwhelming majority of 140 votes, the United Nations General Assembly, Thursday, March 24, adopted a new resolution which “requires” Russia an “immediate” judgment of the war in Ukraine and requests the complete protection civilians – “humanitarian staff, journalists, women and children included”. For Moscow, it is a second defeat to the UN in forty-eight hours, after the almost all of the Security Council had abstained, the day before, to vote a “humanitarian” resolution proposed by Russia – only China who voted at his side. And that, while Russian diplomats have stopped muscling in recent days their offensive, sowing confusion around respect for humanitarian law in Ukraine.
“Russian soldiers have created humanitarian nightmares, said Louis Charbonneau, the Advocate Manager with the United Nations Human Rights Watch, after the vote on Thursday. Member States must now consider concrete stages to hold Russia Head of the war crimes committed by his army. “
politicization of help
It’s only four days after the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine on February 24, Emmanuel Macron press the United Nations to pronounce for the protection of civilians. At the Security Council, France and Mexico written a resolution, but they are quickly caught by the usual blockages: Russia denounces a “politicization” of humanitarian aid and refuses the mention of a “ceasefire” . The Council will lose fifteen days, but will not risk a new Russian veto: it transfers the file to the assembly, whose voted texts do not have the binding value of his, but weigh symbolically.
Insulated at first glance, since 141 countries demanded a ceasefire on March 2, Russia then tries to blur appearances. It presents its own text “humanitarian” to the Council, in which it does not mention or call for cessation of hostilities. Western countries, outraged, shouts with indecency and compare it to a pyromane firefighter.
Similarly, while the American president, Joe Biden, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, must be called the next day, Beijing says she does not want to position himself. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, with the first time withdrew his text from the vote on March 17. He has since stopped this text as a threat, activating and disabling the process of voting several times. “Each time, it climbed the resources of the missions here in New York,” explains in an exhausted voice a Western diplomat. Moscow plays the war of the nerves at the Security Council.
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