UN vote on February 23, 2023.
New York – In a new resolution, the UN General Assembly again called on Russia to immediately withdraw its troops from Ukraine. The text approved on the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion was supported by 141 countries, including the Czech Republic, seven delegations opposed and another 32 abstained. Along with Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea and Syria also opposed it.
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The same number of countries voted for the resolution as for a similar, also legally non-binding opinion adopted last March. At the time, only five countries were against it. In the fall, 143 countries voted in favor of five resolutions condemning Russia's annexation of four areas in the east of Ukraine, which are partially controlled by Russian forces.
The new text, approved on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russian invasion, calls for a “just and lasting peace” in addition to the restoration of Ukraine's internationally recognized borders. The resolution proposed by Kyiv and dozens of its allies also calls for an end to the fighting, which has claimed the lives of thousands, if not tens of thousands of people and driven millions of Ukrainians from their homes.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said on Twitter before the vote, that the Czech Republic “strongly supports” the proposed resolution. According to him, they defend the “principles of sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states”.
According to the AFP agency, Ukraine's allies hoped to build at least as broad a coalition in the UN General Assembly today as during the October vote on annexations. But they did not achieve this goal: the vote was delayed by a number of African countries, as well as China, India and Pakistan.
In today's analysis of developments on the international scene, The New York Times notes that many of these “neutral” countries from the beginning Russian aggressions have provided Moscow with significant economic or diplomatic support. “And even some of the countries that initially agreed to condemn Russia see the war as someone else's problem and have since moved to a more neutral position,” adds the paper.
