Amid the sensation of late news about Russia-US secret talks in Ankara on Monday by a private agency Kommersant, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling for Russia to be held accountable for violating international law by invading Ukraine. The resolution has asked Russia to pay reparations for widespread damage to the country and Ukrainians killed and injured during the war.
The vote in the 193-member world body was 94-14 with 73 abstentions. It was close to the lowest level of support received by any of the five Ukraine-related resolutions adopted by the General Assembly since Russia’s February 24 invasion of its smaller neighbour. The resolution recognises the need to establish “an international mechanism for reparation for damage, loss or injury” arising from Russia’s “wrongful acts” against Ukraine. It recommends that the assembly’s member nations, in cooperation with Ukraine, create “an international register” to document claims and information on damage, loss or injury to Ukrainians and the government caused by Russia.
Before the vote, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya told the assembly that “Russia has tried its best to destroy Ukraine in a very literal sense.” Russia’s bombing and shelling of cities and villages, “targeting everything from plants and factories to residential buildings, schools, hospitals and kindergartens” as well as roads, bridges, railways and almost half of Ukraine’s power grid and utilities in the last month alone. He also cited accounts of atrocities committed by Russians in the territory it occupied.
Might is always right even if irrational.
Russia’s Ambassador to UN Vassily Nebenzia urged assembly members to vote against the resolution, calling it “an attempt to legalise something that from the view of existing international law cannot be legalised. It is “legally null and void.” He accused the West of “doing everything it can to provide a veneer of legitimacy” to start spending frozen or actually “stolen Russian assets amounting to billions of dollars.” The West is seeking a General Assembly decision “as a screen to hide this open robbery” whose “beneficiaries will end up being the Western military corporations.”
The UNGA decision is not unexpected. The US bloc is the largest in the UN General Assembly, and certainly powerful too. It includes the NATO and EU members and some of their non-member strategic partners. Might is always right even if irrational. The global power dynamics are run by the largest bloc within the US political arena with the support of like-minded from some other mighty nations. All the war merchants.
The Ukraine war is the result of the malicious fiddling the US bloc war merchants had in the Black Sea for more than a decade. Falsely dreams have ruined the prosperous realities in Ukraine. The nations have to pay the heavy cost of their leaders’ lust and unwise geopolitical decisions. Ukraine and the entire world are suffering from the comedian-actor’s lust and lack of political wisdom that finally opened the doors to devastation in Ukraine.
The war merchants shall be celebrating the UNGA resolution, and preparing their plans to eat up the frozen Russian assets amounting to billions of dollars. It cost the US less than $20 billion in military shipments to Ukraine since August 2021 – just after the hasty withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan. NATO’s accumulated military aid has similar statistics.
Over the past six months, the EU has provided over €3 billion to Ukraine through the EPF for arms and equipment, signalling a more muscular EU foreign policy featuring the unprecedented provision of direct military assistance. In addition to a separate €1.2 billion loan, for a total of €4.2 billion. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in early October this year that the EU is set to provide Ukraine with up to €18 billion in financial assistance throughout 2023 to cover the basic budgetary needs of the war-torn country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier that his country will need around $55 billion to sustain next year’s budget deficit and repair damaged infrastructure.
The UNGA resolution is likely to increase tension and instability in the entire world. Already a consistently increasing trust deficit in the UN system that is only based on head counts, not logical and rational arguments. Sixteen countries and the Palestinians echoed Russia, saying in a joint statement that the resolution didn’t have “sufficient legal basis.” Its signatories, including China, Iran, Angola and Venezuela, said countries suffering from foreign interference, colonialism, slavery, oppression, unilateral sanctions “and other internationally wrongful acts, also deserve the right to remedy, reparation and justice, which should be addressed through sound legal processes.”
Russia’s veto power in the 15-member Security Council has blocked the UN’s most powerful body from taking any action since President Vladimir Putin ordered the “Special Military Operation.” But there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, which previously adopted four resolutions criticising Russia’s “invasion.” Unlike the UN Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but they do reflect world opinion and have demonstrated widespread opposition to Russia’s military action.
On the other hand, to further enhance the Ukrainian agenda in Europe amid Europeans’ growing fatigue with the armed conflict in Ukraine, Kyiv is said to be preparing for another cynical provocation against Russia. An informed source has reported that Kyiv is to dig up cemeteries and pass off the people buried there as “victims of Russian aggression” to discredit Russia globally. Reportedly, the Kyiv authorities have exhumed bodies from the local cemetery in Izyum in the Kharkiv region, which had spontaneously emerged during the spring hostilities near the town. Russia has also repeatedly blamed Ukraine for not taking back the remains of AFU servicemen. Strange and stingy state of affairs to have more aid and sympathies.
The writer is a freelance journalist and broadcaster, and Director Devcom-Pakistan. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com and tweets @EmmayeSyed.