Ukraine’s diplomat explains how to isolate Russia at UN

Ukraine’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Volodymyr Yelchenko (2015-2019), joined Espreso TV’s Spotlight Ukraine programme to comment on the ways to suspend the membership of Russia in the UN Security Council. 

As Russia continues to commit crimes, shelling cities and killing innocent Ukrainians, the easiest way to deal with its UN membership and restrict the aggressor in the international arena is to suspend their credentials. 

“Ukrainian diplomats could raise the issue of the Russian delegation’s credentials, which was the case several times in UN history, for example in 1956 after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and installed a puppet regime there – the credentials of the Hungarian delegation were frozen for 2 years. Another example is the South African Republic during apartheid regime. Their delegation could not participate in the meetings, to vote and so on," Yelchenko said. 

The diplomat added that the expulsion of Russia from the UN would take more time, even if the country is recognized as the aggressor. 

“The UN Charter is very vague and it’s not easy to collect enough votes in the General Assembly to expel Russian from the UN. Many countries are just afraid of such precedent. I think the best time would be on the eve of the next session of the General Assembly which is to be convened in early September this year. There is a Credentials Committee of the General Assembly which has the first meeting before the session starts. If we raise this issue in the Credentials Committee  we can hae a successful story,” he added. 

Yelchenko explained that the second option is to use the credentials mechanism in the UN Security Council.

“In case one or more delegations question the credentials of the Russian delegation in the UN Security Council, the vote is held. And in this case the veto right is not applied because this is the procedural question. In this case we need to collect 9 out of 15 votes. Given the composition of the Security Council we can get the needed support,” he said.

• On April 1, the aggressor state Russia took charge of the UN executive body, replacing Mozambique under the terms of the order of precedence

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• Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has said that European leaders will oppose any abuses of its position by Russia during its UN presidency

• Western representatives leave UN meeting as Russian children’s commissioner speaks 

• Russia has lost elections to 3 UN bodies at once. Russia has been defeated by Romania, Estonia, Armenia and the Czech Republic

• Former representative of the French-speaking governments of Belgium, Zénon Kowal, in an interview with Volodymyr Ostapchuk, host of the Spotlight Ukraine program, explained whether it is possible to expel Russia from international platforms