High-Level UN Meetings Recognizing First Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

The United Nations recognized the first anniversary of Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine with high-level meetings of both the General Assembly and Security Council.

On February 23, 2023, the General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities, Russia’s complete and unconditional withdrawal of its military forces from all of Ukraine, and full accountability for crimes committed on Ukraine’s territory. The resolution reaffirmed the urgent need to reach a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with the United Nations Charter and called for all parties to adhere to international humanitarian law.

Black Sea Grain Initiative

The General Assembly resolution, like the ones before it that have condemned Russia’s invasion, is non-binding. However, the vote of 141 member states in favor of the resolution from countries all around the world represented a stinging rebuke of Russia’s actions and rationales for its aggression, not that Russia cares even in the slightest. Only 6 member states joined Russia in voting against the resolution (Belarus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, and Syria), with 32 abstentions including China.

The next day, February 24th, the Security Council met to mark the actual anniversary date of the Russian invasion and observed a moment of silence. There were speeches but no vote on any resolution mirroring the General Assembly resolution, given the certainty of a Russian veto.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres minced no words in his opening remarks to the Security Council. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international law,” he said. “It has unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement. Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have caused many casualties and terrible suffering.”

The Secretary General summed up the plight of the Ukrainian people with these chilling words: “Life is a living hell for the people of Ukraine.”

“The guns are talking now, but in the end we all know that the path of diplomacy and accountability is the road to a just and sustainable peace,” Secretary General Guterres concluded. He noted one limited diplomatic success so far, the Black Sea Grain Initiative that the UN helped to broker which will expire in March unless extended.

Foreign Minister Kuleba mocked Russia’s claim that supplying Ukraine with weapons fuels the war

Following Secretary General Guterres’ remarks, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was the first to speak. The president of the Security Council for the month of February overruled an objection by Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia that giving the floor to Mr. Kuleba before the Security Council members speak defied Security Council precedent.

“Ukraine will resist as it has done so far, and Ukraine will win. Putin is going to lose much sooner than he thinks,” Foreign Minister Kuleba proclaimed. “Russia is the problem of the world,” he said. As an example of the atrocities that Russia has perpetrated in its war of aggression, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister charged that Russia was implementing “the worst case of children kidnapping.”

Foreign Minister Kuleba mocked Russia’s claim that supplying Ukraine with weapons fuels the war. “Ukraine indeed needs weapons, just as a firefighter needs water to extinguish a fire,” he said, noting that the “the sooner and the more we get, the sooner the fire will be extinguished.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ripped into Russia during his remarks to the Security Council, as expected. The only acceptable peace, he said, was one that is “just and durable,” which upholds the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty and independence that Russia has violated. “Members of this council should not fall into the false equivalence of calling on both sides to stop fighting or calling on other nations to stop supporting Ukraine in the name of peace,” Secretary Blinken said. “In this war, there is an aggressor and there is a victim. Russia fights for conquest. Ukraine fights for its freedom.” To that point, Secretary Blinken warned about so-called “ceasefires” that would give Russia the opportunity to rearm itself for more aggression against Ukraine.

Russian Ambassador Nebenzia repeated Russia’s talking points accusing the West of wanting to defeat Russia, followed by the disintegration of the country. He harkened back to what he called the 2014 “coup,” which, he charged, resulted in a hostile “Russophobic” regime on Russia’s border.

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Ukraine is up to its elbows in blood and Nazi tattoos

“Ukraine is up to its elbows in blood and Nazi tattoos,” said Ambassador Nebenzia, who claimed that Ukraine has embarked for nine years on eliminating the Russian-speaking citizens in Donbas. “Ukraine is not a victim,” he said. The mouthpiece for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine claimed that Ukraine had brought the so-called “special military operation” upon itself by waging war against the Donetsk and Luhansk Russian-speaking people.

Ambassador Nebenzia denied that Russia ever wanted to “de-Ukrainize” Ukraine – an assertion contradicted by President Putin’s oft-repeated claim that Ukraine belongs to Russia. All that Ukraine needs to do to end the war, said Ambassador Nebenzia, is to become a “friendly neighbor” and negotiate how the goals of Russia’s “special military operation” will be implemented. In other words, the price of peace on Russia’s terms is Ukraine’s capitulation and conversion into a puppet state.

China loves to pose as a peacemaker committed to multilateralism. It issued a 12-point position paper on what it called the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis. Some of the points are non-controversial such as resolving the humanitarian crisis, protecting civilians and prisoners of war, facilitating grain exports, keeping nuclear power plants safe, and opposing the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances. But other parts of China’s position paper use nice words such as respecting the sovereignty of all countries while making the false equivalence between Russia’s and Ukraine’s security concerns that Secretary of State Blinken had warned about. There was no mention of the parties returning to their pre-February 24, 2022 lines, much less Russia’s complete withdrawal from Ukraine and pullback of its forces from the border.

“Security is not an exclusive right enjoyed only by some countries,” China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said in his remarks to the Security Council. “The security of one country should not be pursued at the expense of others.”

China reiterated its opposition to what it called “unilateral sanctions unauthorized by the UN Security Council

China’s position paper called for abandoning the Cold War mentality and preventing bloc confrontation, even as the Chinese Communist regime is fostering close ties with Russia including trade, joint military exercises, and consideration of supplying Russia with lethal weapons. And China reiterated its opposition to what it called “unilateral sanctions unauthorized by the UN Security Council.”

In his remarks to the press, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said that he could consider accepting certain elements of China’s peace proposal for a political settlement, singling out the rejection of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. However, other elements, he said, were unacceptable.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held the door open to China’s diplomatic efforts a bit further. He said he wants to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and would be open to discussing China’s peace proposal.

Most of the other Security Council speeches denounced Russia’s invasion, called for respect of the principles of the UN Charter that Russia’s invasion had violated, and supported Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.

It is all well and good to side with Ukraine against Russia, to reaffirm the principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity that Russia has violated, and to provide aid, including military assistance that Ukraine needs to defend itself. But the question is how much military aid and for how long.

The United States is providing far more military assistance to Ukraine than its Western allies. U.S. military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion is approaching $50 billion, with more to come. President Biden has just approved the provision of additional military assistance and has indicated that the United States will stand by Ukraine’s side in defending its territory for as long as it takes.

The American people will not support writing a blank check for Ukraine and becoming needlessly entangled in another seemingly endless war

However, President Zelensky, while appreciative, is not satisfied. He will not give up pressing his case for maximum arms support, knowing that the goal posts have already moved several times in Ukraine’s favor since Putin’s invasion and are likely to do so again.

Giving Ukraine humanitarian aid to relieve the Ukrainian people's suffering is a noble endeavor. However, Ukraine’s desire to retake and unconditionally control all the territory it has lost to Russia since 2014, including Crimea, should not determine what weapons and other military support the United States continues to provide to Ukraine.

This does not mean that the United States has no stake in what happens in Ukraine. The question is where to draw the line between the extreme poles of vehement interventionism and turning completely inward with a policy of isolationism.

The U.S. has a strategic national interest in seeing to it that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine does not extend beyond Ukraine. Russian attacks that spill over into any NATO country would likely trigger NATO’s Article 5 collective defense obligations and draw the United States into a direct military conflict against Russia, with dangerously unpredictable consequences.

Deterrence against Russian expansionist ambitions to pick off members of NATO, particularly those that used to be part of or aligned with the Soviet Union, must be America’s central focus in deciding the appropriate types and quantities of defensive weapons to provide to Ukraine. Ukraine may define victory against Russia as retaking all of Ukraine’s territory occupied by Russia since 2014, including Crimea. The United States, however, should not be bound by Ukraine’s definition of victory if it exceeds what is in the U.S.’s own vital national interest. The American people will not support writing a blank check for Ukraine and becoming needlessly entangled in another seemingly endless war.

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