Russia unlawfully occupies not only Ukrainian territories, but UN Security Council seat as well

On December 26, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry published a statement explaining in detail why Russia has no right to remain a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to be in the United Nations at all. 

Ukrainian diplomats called for Russia to be removed as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

“Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN … to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole,” the official statement said. 

This time Ukraine worked simultaneously with its Western partners: On December 15, the US Congress introduced a bipartisan resolution proposing to expel Russia from the UN Security Council, and on December 23, the President of the European Council Charles Michel also announced the need to suspend Russia's veto-wielding permanent seat.

The explanation was simple – the state, which was supposed to enforce peace, had started a cruel, unprovoked and unjustified war against its neighbor.

Apart from Russia's full-scale invasion and Moscow's aggressive policy, discrediting the entire UN system, which in itself is a strong argument, Ukraine’s MFA gave a brief lesson on history and international law.

The Soviet Union's collapse in December 1991 left unresolved the issue of international rights and obligations of the USSR.

“From the point of view of international law, the issue of the status of a UN member state and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is enjoyed by the Russian Federation, remains unsettled,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted.

Thus, Russia was left in the UN Security Council instead of the non-existent state without a legal decision. 

“How could this happen? Easily: in 1991, it was the USSR that presided over the UN. The then representative of the Soviet Union, Yuliy Vorontsov, verbally told other members of the Security Council about President Yeltsin's letter about Russia's intention to take the Soviet Union's place in the UN. The Security Council silently agreed,” says Ukrainian journalist Ihor Hulyk.

Russia was not even among the co-founders of the UN, because due to Stalin's whim, the co-founders of the UN were the USSR, Ukraine and Belarus. Moreover, the UN Charter prohibits the successor state (the Russian Federation) to inherit the seat of the predecessor state (the USSR) in the UN.

“Allowing Russia to use the right of the Soviet Union to veto the decisions of the UN Security Council does not allow this body to fulfill its main mission – the maintenance of international peace and security,” Sergiy Kyslytsya, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN, has repeatedly said at the Security Council.

His predecessor, Ukrainian diplomat Volodymyr Yelchenko, explains that the situation still can be changed and that Ukraine can ask the International Court of Justice to consider this issue that has been ignored for more than 30 years.

Ukrainian diplomats believe that, guided by the principle of equality of UN members, Russia should follow the same international legal path of acquiring membership in the Organization as other countries.

Because now the Russian Federation enjoys the rights of a permanent member of the UN Security Council without a proper legal basis, blocking crucial decisions on Ukraine. 

The latest incident was on September 30, when the UN Security Council tried to condemn the illegal “referendums” on the “accession” of Ukrainian territories to the Russian Federation. However, Russia vetoed the general decision.

On February 25, 2022, the UN Security Council resolution on ending the Ukraine invasion, was vetoed by Russia, despite the fact that 141 out of 193 states in the General Assembly condemned Russia’s aggression.

After Russia annexed Crimea and occupied part of the Ukrainian territories in 2014, its representative blocked the deployment of a UN peacekeeping contingent to Donbas. 

Not to mention that Russia is the country, which violated international law and the UN Charter by starting its war against Ukraine

“Given the war, in which Ukraine is essentially a barrier to European democracy, after Russia is excluded, why shouldn't Kyiv apply for the vacant seat in the UN Security Council? I think it would be fair and logical,” believes Ihor Hulyk.