RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The extraordinary UN General Assembly voted on Wednesday a resolution condemning the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. It totaled 141 votes in favor, five against (Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, and Russia itself), and 35 abstentions. The latter group includes China and four Latin American countries: Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. A fifth, Venezuela, an unconditional ally of Moscow, has its vote disqualified due to debts with the organization. The positive votes of Argentina and Brazil, two countries that had played the neutrality card and finally opted for repudiation, were relevant.
The General Assembly resolution demands Moscow to cease “immediately” the military offensive on Ukraine. It was the UN’s response to Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council of a condemnation of the invasion. Together with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and China, Russia is one of the five countries with veto power in that body. The Western countries circumvented the Kremlin’s blockade with an emergency call to the General Assembly, where each country has one vote, and there are no special powers. The scenario of the open discussion highlighted the arguments of the pro-Russian Latin American bloc.
The most enthusiastic was Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro revealed on Tuesday that he called Vladimir Putin to “ratify Venezuela’s condemnation of NATO’s destabilizing actions.” “Maduro expressed his strong support for Russia’s decisive actions,” the Kremlin later stressed in a statement. Venezuela could not vote this Wednesday at the UN because it accumulated a million-dollar debt with the organization but left its opinion. “The UN cannot be used to deepen conflicts,” said Ambassador Samuel Moncada. Representatives of other Russian allies, such as Cuba, were present with voice and vote.
Its ambassador to the UN, Pedro Pedroso Cuesta, said that to “examine with rigor and honesty” the situation in Ukraine, it is necessary to assess what he considered “the determination” of the United States to advance under the NATO umbrella on the Russian borders. He also mentioned the “delivery of modern weapons” to Kiev. The Cuban reading coincides with the Russian one: the invasion responds to previous aggression by the West, which did not listen to the Kremlin’s cries for security. The Nicaraguan Jaime Hermida Castillo spoke of “military encirclement”. Bolivia justified its abstention with a plea for the distribution of responsibilities. According to Ambassador Diego Pary, there was part of the blame “on the Western powers which, through NATO, put the security and peace of other states at risk”. “Using intermediary states that favor the expansionist ambitions of these Western powers and threaten the security of their neighbors,” said Pary, where Ukraine is the “intermediary” state and Russia the threatened neighbor.
The vote did not only put black on white among those on the Russian side. It also revealed the turn of Brazil and Argentina, which until now had played the neutrality card. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro visited Putin on February 24 and had warned that his country had not yet decided its vote. Finally, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry decided to support the resolution, as did Argentina. Alberto Fernandez had also visited Moscow in the days before the operation and offered the Kremlin to be “the gateway to Latin America”. On Wednesday, however, the Argentine ambassador to the UN, María del Carmen Squeff, warned in her speech that “no territorial acquisition can be recognized as legal based on the use or threat of the use of force”.
Mexico, meanwhile, charged against Russia’s right to veto as a member of the Security Council. “Mexico once again demands that the permanent members of the Security Council refrain from using their veto in situations in which they are directly involved or in situations of mass atrocities”, as Russia has done, said the Mexican ambassador to the UN, Juan Ramón de la Fuente.
With information from El País