A year after invading Ukraine, the three blocs into which global diplomacy is divided (the West, the global South, and Russia with its few satellites) have not moved an iota, nor have they managed to gain support for their respective ones to win requests. The lack of understanding was made clear at the extraordinary session of the UN Security Council, held in New York this Friday. Positions seem even more bitter, even with episodes of tension such as the gesture by Russian Ambassador Vasili Nebenzia, when, in the face of Ukraine’s requested minute’s silence for victims, he suggested extending one to “all victims since 2014”, when the conflict in of eastern Ukraine began. Nebenzia finally joined and stood up, but her initial protest, banging on the table, showed that the attempt to reconcile the positions seems a long way off. The Council, theoretical guarantor of world peace and the international security, is still blocked.
China’s 12-point peace plan, unveiled in Beijing this Friday and met with skepticism from the West for allegedly leaning towards the Kremlin, has not monopolized the session, barring veiled innuendoes from countries in the Global South about the need for dialogue – Brazil condemned “the triumphalist rhetoric of both parties” – and the Chinese ambassador himself, Dai Bing, who did not elaborate on the content of his country’s so-called “political positioning” to resolve the conflict. Based on a ceasefire, the end of sanctions against Russia and respect for territorial integrity, the proposal carries the same message that supports China’s position in the face of the crisis: profile abstaining while condemning the war.
With the participation of the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, the appeal only managed to broadcast the symbolism of the date to the world without new ideas or suggestions. Russia has once again dubbed the Ukrainian government the “Kiev regime” and brandished Cold War ghosts (“What you call peace is the destruction of Russia,” Nebenzia said). The Global South continues to abstain from voting against Russia or in favor of Ukraine, as well as from its criticism of Moscow and Western arms shipments, an equidistance exercise also joined by Hungary this week, breaking the European Union’s unanimity on which the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba replied: “Arming a country to defend itself against aggression is perfectly legitimate; otherwise it is a crime.”
Finally, Russia, which the previous day had supported just six countries in voting on a General Assembly resolution, again waved the usual list of grievances, including procedural grievances on the agenda, in addition to repeating that Moscow does not want the “destruction of Ukraine.” , but to eliminate threats such as “genocide and marginalization of Russian speakers” in eastern Ukraine, a pretext the Kremlin has been repeating since 2014. “The Kiev regime is sacrificing its own people to serve the interests of the West, and the situation is changing worse when Ukraine is armed,” Nebenzia said in a reply.
Speaking at the meeting were the fifteen members of the Security Council and long fifteen European foreign ministers, including Britain’s James Cleverly and France’s Catherine Colonna, as well as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who attributed all responsibility to Vladimir Putin: “One man started this war and [solo] one man can end it.” “If we give up Ukraine, we also give up the Charter of the United Nations,” added Blinken, who once again laid the foundation for any solution: “Sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence” of Ukraine.
Russia’s right of veto
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The speech by the head of Ukraine’s diplomacy provoked angry procedural complaints from Nebenzia, the tough and experienced Russian ambassador, on his second day as Sergei Lavrov, when Russia’s current foreign minister headed his country’s delegation to the UN. Lavrov’s absence from New York this Friday, perhaps more prominently at a meeting chaired by his counterparts, was highlighted by Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares in an appearance to journalists after the meeting. An absence that shows not only Russia’s isolation, Albares said, but also the fact that it “does not want to hear the voice of diplomacy, as it has always chosen the voice of arms.” For Albares, Moscow has “resoundingly” lost the diplomatic battle.
In turn, Nebenzia’s words were met with similar sharpness by the Ukrainian minister. “Putin will lose [la guerra] much sooner than you think; The more they attack us, the more we resist,” shouted an energetic Kuleba, stressing that the aggressive action goes well beyond Russia and extends “to Africa, Asia and the Middle East.” “Russia is the world’s problem,” Kuleba declared, recalling that in 1991, the year of the collapse of the USSR, the Russian Federation inherited the seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. The inherent veto power blocks executive action at the UN’s highest forum, an obstacle that many member countries of the organization have since denounced.
In this regard, Minister Albares condemned the carte blanche that implies such a prerogative by preventing the Council from exercising its “primary function” of ensuring global peace and security. No country should have the opportunity to abuse this right for its own purposes, “as if it were a blank check,” said the foreign minister.
Among all the messages of the extraordinary Council, that of the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, resonated even more, if possible, because it opens a rift in European integration. Szijjártó underscored his country’s humanitarian role “with 1,300 schools open to refugees,” stressing: “This war has no winners, only losers, and the more losers there are, the more suffering. But with guns and sanctions [los pilares de la UE hacia Ucrania] lives are not saved. We have been criticized for this position (…) We are in the 25th hour. We must end the war, prevent it from becoming a third world war. Szijjártó’s words are interpreted by some as a leak in the European response.
The severe food crisis caused by the blockade of the Black Sea ports in the first months of the war also drew the Forum’s attention. António Guterres announced he would seek an extension of the Turkey-sponsored so-called Black Sea Agreement to expand shipping of cargo ships carrying grain and fertilizers after March, the months-long blockade of which threatened to trigger mass starvation in the Global South. Guterres also called for an agreement between the parties to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhia power plant to avoid “catastrophic consequences” for humanity. They were the only two concrete proposals from the meeting.
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