A special UNGA meeting on Ukraine to take place
3 Min Read
The session will be under the banner of 'Uniting for Peace.'
-
The United Nations General Assembly is largely ruled by NATO nations.
The United Nations Security Council has called on Sunday for a rare emergency session with the UN General Assembly regarding the critical situation in Ukraine. This comes after a failed draft resolution against Russia on Friday where 11 voted for said resolution, Russia vetoed it, and China, India and the UAE abstained.
The special UNGA session is expected to take place Monday. Although Russia voted against the convene, its vote was procedural given that vetoes are functional in this case. China, India and the UAE abstained again.
Previously, Moscow voted against the most recent "anti-Russia" resolution drafted by the Security Council, its envoy stressing that the draft resolution is unbalanced and overlooked very important issues.
The resolution condemned "the Russian attack on Ukraine." Moscow thanked the Security Council members who did not vote for the draft resolution, stressing that they do not attack civilians.
"We strongly condemn the deployment of the positions of artillery and multiple rocket launchers by the nationalists in residential neighborhoods," the Russian permanent representative said. "This is a direct violation of international humanitarian law," Vasily Nebenzya said.
The Russian representative also blamed the West, which sponsored this draft resolution on Ukraine, for the current crisis, saying that these countries made Ukraine "a pawn in your geopolitical game, not caring at all about the interests of the Ukrainian people."
The diplomat called the draft resolution "nothing but another move in this cruel and inhuman chess game against Ukraine."
Ukraine using civilians as human shield - Russia's representative
Nebenzia spoke on Sunday of how the Ukrainian army is using civilians as human shields, violating international humanitarian law which Western politicians have been ignoring. This sight has not, according to the envoy, received coverage in foreign media despite that Ukrainians themselves have been seeing this.
The tactics, as said by the envoy, are similar to "that of [ISIS] terrorists," adding that "all responsibility for possible consequences rests with the Maidan regime."
Furthermore, the representative addressed the worrying situation where weapons are distributed in an unregulated and irresponsible way among radical militias and authorities as well as anyone willing to obtain them, including criminals and looters.
He said people have been shot due to this situation though their authenticity cannot be confirmed as the Ukrainian authorities stay silent regarding this issue.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian militants have been positioning artillery in residential areas, which is a technique notorious to US military and intelligence in order to target civilians more and result in casualties: “These methods are actively used by terrorists supervised by the CIA in the Middle East and other countries."
