The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution on Monday that holds Russia responsible for the violation of international law for the invasion of Ukraine and that includes the payment of war reparations.
The text, promoted by kyiv and some of its allies, was approved by 94 votes in favour, 14 against and 74 abstentions, among the 193 member states with seats in the conclave. This was the lowest level of support among the five resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly since the Russian invasion of the neighboring country on February 24.
The resolution, which is not binding, calls for the establishment of an international redress mechanism and recommends the creation of an international registry of damages during the conflict.
The text also refuses to trigger a compensation process within the UN, limiting itself to supporting this idea and “recommending” Ukraine, with the support of other countries, to draw up a record of the damage caused by the war. .
“Ukraine will have the enormous task of rebuilding the country and recovering from this war, but this recovery will never be complete without a sense of justice for the victims of the Russian war. The time has come to hold Russia accountable,” the Ukrainian ambassador said. . Sergiy Kyslytsya at the presentation of the document.
Russia is firmly opposed to this initiative and was supported in rejecting the text by countries such as China, Iran, Cuba, and others more common in the United Nations, such as Syria, North Korea or Nicaragua.
The Russian ambassador, Vasili Nebenzia, considered during the debate period that this proposal is not valid from the perspective of international law and could mean an attempt to “illegal expropriation of sovereign assets.”
Nebenzia accused the Western powers of seeking Russian reparations in Ukraine when for years they had refused to accept it in other cases, and assured that the implementation of the text will have “systematic implications for the activities of the UN.”
Among the countries that abstained, some indicated that they were in favor of paying compensation to Ukraine, but argued that the formula was not adequate, since the General Assembly does not provide details on the requested mechanisms and has no control. or supervision of the process.
Other Member States considered the proposal reckless, due to the ongoing war, or questioned the fact that reparations had not been paid in other conflicts in the recent past.
The Ukrainian government has considered the payment of war reparations as a basic condition for any peace negotiations with Russia, in addition to the country’s territorial integrity and the prosecution of war crimes suspects.
“This resolution brings us closer to that goal,” considered the Ukrainian representative in his speech.
At the same time, Louis Charbonneau, director of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) for the UN, considered it “essential that investigations continue into all illegal attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure and that there be no impunity in Ukraine or any other situation in which serious crimes are committed”.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine has already caused the flight of more than 13 million people -more than six million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million to European countries-, according to the most recent data. of the UN, which catalogs this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the wider international community, which has responded by sending arms to Ukraine and imposing them on Russia in political and economic sanctions.
The UN presented as confirmed since the beginning of the war 6,557 dead civilians and 10,074 wounded, stressing that these figures are far below the real ones.
Source: TSF
