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The United Nations Security Council has convened nearly a dozen meetings on Ukraine since late January, six since the brutal Russian invasion began last month. The resulting meetings, aimed at condemning Russia’s invasion, calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors, achieved almost nothing – because Russia, as one of five permanent members of the 15-member body, has veto power and has so far used that veto at any take action against it.
The United Nations was created after World War II with the aim of stopping future wars, but while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning the world of a new world war, the Security Council is being used by Russia to thwart any meaningful action against it. And it seems that even the Secretary-General of the United Nations is frustrated by the inaction.
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Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, admitted these frustrations. “The complicating factor in bringing this crisis to an end is the split within the Security Council. As we’ve seen before, achieving peace only makes sense when the Security Council is divided, whenever the five permanent members of the Security Council in particular are divided, so much more complicated.”
Kelly Craft, who served as the United States Ambassador to the world body from 2019 to 2021, told Fox News Digital that the council failed on Ukraine. “While the UN Security Council can achieve majority opinion, and sometimes consensus, on pressing international issues, there are stark times when it fails utterly. This is one such case,” Craft said. “With Russia a permanent veto member of the council, there is no way to prevent Moscow from blocking a resolution that would condemn Russian aggression and support a ceasefire that would end this terrible war.”
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine Thursday, March 17, 2022 at the UN Headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
Craft said that while the UN General Assembly’s non-binding vote to condemn Russia earlier this month had helped isolate President Vladimir Putin in the international community, it acknowledged the UN’s vital humanitarian efforts in Ukraine and neighboring countries but said that the Russian invasion showed the weakness of the UN. “The basic truth is that meaningful UN action on a geopolitical front is woefully inadequate to end this conflict. This underscores the limitations of the United Nations as an international body to address the dangers of our time and makes it abundantly clear that other avenues to resolve the conflict must be pursued together.”
Richard Gowan, the UN director of the International Crisis Group (ICG), recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that the war in Ukraine threatens to do long-term damage to the UN, and said Security Council observers were not surprised by his inability to come together on Ukraine , and noting the council’s previous failures on Syria and Burma, he told Fox News Digital that the council still had a useful role to play. “We have to be realistic about what the Security Council can and cannot do. He is very useful when it comes to managing peacekeeping in Africa or humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. One small bright spot in the recent chaos surrounding Ukraine is that Russia chose not to block a key UN resolution on maintaining a UN mission in Afghanistan that will help help Afghans in need.”
The US and allies accuse Russia of using the UN Security Council to “launder” disinformation about Ukraine.
One of the critics who has criticized the performance of the United Nations Security Council and the organization’s handling of the Ukraine crisis is Clifford May, the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). May said the world body had become an increasingly dysfunctional organization, noting: “This has been evident for years to anyone who pays close attention. Unfortunately, very few people in Congress or the State Department have paid close attention to this.”
Referring to the UN Security Council’s inability to do anything about Ukraine, May said he sees the potential for a different approach: “One can imagine an alternative to the UN Security Council and indeed to the increasingly dysfunctional UN system … but that would require a long-term project, one that the current administration is unlikely to even begin.”
May also took aim at Guterres’ performance in the current crisis: “The UN Secretary-General is hardly a profile of courage. But he almost certainly sees his job as performing functions “trusted” to him by the United Nations Security Council. Russia and China sit as permanent members with veto power. And neither Russia nor China trusts him to help save Ukrainian lives or to uphold the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, a UN member state.”
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Dujarric contradicted the criticism of his boss, telling Fox News Digital that Guterres remained actively focused on the humanitarian and diplomatic aspects of the Russian invasion. “The Secretary-General was in constant contact with numerous leaders and parties. Among them are heads of government and senior leaders of Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Turkey, Israel, Finland, France, Russia and many others.”
He said the secretary-general had been frank and made it clear from day one of the conflict that the war must end immediately and Russian troops must end hostilities and withdraw from Ukraine. “From the very first day of the conflict, he appealed to the President of the Russian Federation to stop fighting. As he pointed out, countless innocent people – including women and children – have been killed and this escalating violence is totally unacceptable. Protecting civilians must be the number one priority.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during an interview at the UN Headquarters in New York City. (AP/Robert Bumsted, file)
The ICG’s Gowan said Guterres and the UN could play an even bigger role in bringing the invasion to an end. He said Guterres “had no choice but to condemn Russia’s war last month, and that was the right thing to do. But once he spoke out against Moscow, Russia decided they couldn’t trust him as a mediator. So he has little political cooperation with Moscow and cannot play a significant diplomatic role unless Putin decides he needs UN help to end the war.
He said there may even come a point when Russia needs UN help. “I can imagine a scenario where Moscow decides to cut its losses and cease hostilities and turns to the UN to help it do that. That could mean, for example, asking UN observers to patrol a ceasefire line. Russia might try to recognize this diplomatic solution at the UN to offset their military problems, but that kind of idea remains pretty hypothetical at the moment.”
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The United Nations General Assembly is expected to meet again this week for an emergency special session on Ukraine. A draft resolution entitled “Humanitarian Consequences of Aggression Against Ukraine” will be debated and put to the vote.
The resolution is expected to be similar to the one sponsored by France and Mexico, which didn’t even get a hearing at the Security Council. If, as expected, it receives a majority of votes in the General Assembly, the resolution, unlike a Security Council resolution, will not be legally binding and will therefore be largely symbolic.