Trump Administration’s Ukraine Resolutions at the UN: One for Two

The United Nations marked the third anniversary of Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine with resolutions passed by the General Assembly and Security Council. In both cases, the Trump administration wanted a simple forward-looking resolution calling for a swift end to the conflict and a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia, while avoiding a fruitless rehash of contentious rhetoric and finger-pointing.

Bringing Peace To Ukraine

The Trump administration believes that continuing to use the UN’s global platform to engage in more wars of words would only serve to undermine the administration’s active attempt to negotiate a viable settlement of the conflict once and for all. The administration prevailed in one UN chamber but not the other.

The United States succeeded in passing its simple, forward-looking resolution in the Security Council, which is the UN’s most important body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Security Council resolutions are recognized as legally binding under international law. The 15-member Security Council approved the U.S. resolution without any amendments, with ten votes in favor, none against, and five abstentions. Even though this was the first Security Council action taken in three years on Ukraine to firmly call for an end to the conflict, Denmark, France, Greece, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom decided to abstain.

Contrary to its success in the Security Council, the United States failed earlier in the day to pass the original version of its draft resolution in the General Assembly. Since the General Assembly’s resolutions are nothing more than non-binding, meaningless policy pronouncements and recommendations anyway, the Trump administration’s loss there is more of a nuisance than anything else. But it does display a fissure between current U.S. policy regarding how best to diplomatically end the war between Russia and Ukraine and the stale, futile approach taken by America’s European allies.

President Trump is trying to cut through all the noise and pursue a practical solution that results in a durable, secure peace

Ukraine and America’s longtime European allies thought it was more important to use the General Assembly to virtue signal than to work constructively towards achieving a durable peace that takes account of today’s realities. They pressed for General Assembly resolutions expressly condemning Russia’s aggression and demanding that Russia immediately withdraw its military forces from Ukraine. The United States voted against the Ukraine-sponsored resolution and abstained on the version of its own resolution that the European countries amended with language that reiterated verbiage from previous resolutions pointing to Russia as the aggressor.

In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the General Assembly went on record condemning Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and calling for the immediate withdrawal of Russia's military forces. That was the reasonable thing to do back then and during the early stages of the conflict. But three years have now passed with the looming prospect of an endless war of attrition that has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Singing the same old song does nothing now but make the chorus members feel good about themselves. President Trump is trying to cut through all the noise and pursue an innovative path to achieving a practical solution that results in a durable, secure peace.

As Dorothy Shea, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim who was representing the United States, said at the emergency General Assembly meeting on Ukraine:

Trump administration’s common-sense draft resolution

“Since the start of the war 11 years ago [when Russia invaded and seized Crimea], the United Nations has repeatedly condemned Russia’s blatant violations of the UN Charter. Multiple resolutions of the General Assembly have demanded that Russia withdraw its forces from Ukraine. Those resolutions have failed to stop the war. It has now dragged on for far too long, and at far too terrible a cost to the people in Ukraine, in Russia, and beyond… what we need is a resolution marking the commitment from all UN Member States to bring a durable end to the war. The draft resolution submitted by the United States makes this very point. Our draft implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.”

The Trump administration’s common-sense draft resolution did not condone Russia’s invasion but neither did it needlessly relitigate the past. Instead, the Trump administration would rather focus on direct negotiations to finally end the war with security-enhancing incentives and deterrents built into an agreement, which requires both Russia’s and Ukraine’ s buy-in. Going along now with regurgitating hollow anti-Russian rhetoric that has done nothing for years to advance peace would run counter to achieving President Trump’s diplomatic objectives.

In any event, the UN General Assembly should not be taken seriously. It has proven to be a hypocritical forum for spewing anti-Semitic, anti-American rhetoric. Time and again, the General Assembly has passed outrageous resolutions with the intent to demonize, delegitimize, and discriminate against Israel.

Trump administration wisely withdrew the United States from the Human Rights Council

In 2024 alone, the General Assembly passed “a total of 17 resolutions that single out the Jewish state, compared to a total of six regarding the rest of the world combined,” according to the World Israeli News, citing data from UN Watch. But not once has the General Assembly sought fit to condemn Hamas, let alone brand it as a terrorist organization - even after Hamas’s genocidal massacres, rapes, torture, and abductions of Israeli Jews and others on October 7, 2023.

The Human Rights Council, a General Assembly subsidiary body, has passed “over 100 condemnatory resolutions…more than against Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela combined,” according to Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. The Trump administration wisely withdrew the United States from the Human Rights Council. It should also withdraw at minimum its share of the UN budget that funds this virulently anti-Semitic body as well as all UN one-sided organizations and forums devoted to advancing the Palestinian agenda.

In addition, the Trump administration should push to replace equal voting privileges for all 193 member states in the General Assembly with weighted voting on all budgetary matters. Each member state should be accorded with the voting weight that corresponds to its proportion of funding of the UN’s regular budget when it comes to all votes relating to the budget.

As Elise Stefanik, President Trump’s designee to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, put it, “We need a Global DOGE! We must expose the reckless and antisemitic, anti-American spending at the United Nations — and we will.”