UN meets to take on resolutions on humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

AP , Wednesday 23 Mar 2022

Ukraine's UN ambassador is urging all nations that stand against Russia's invasion to vote for a UN resolution on the humanitarian consequences of its aggression, saying this will send a powerful message aimed at helping people caught in the conflict and ending Moscow's military action.

UN Security Council meeting over Ukraine crisis

File Photo: World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reports by video on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, during a meeting of the UN Security Council, March 17, 2022, at UN headquarters. AP

Russia's UN envoy countered that the UN General Assembly, which is considering the resolution, is just ``another political anti-Russian show, set this time in an allegedly humanitarian context'' and urged its 193 member nations to vote against it and support a rival South African draft resolution that focuses solely on humanitarian issues with no ``political assessment.''

Ukraine's Sergiy Kyslytsya and Russia's Vassily Nebenzia spoke at the start of Wednesday's emergency special session of the General Assembly to consider the rival resolutions on the humanitarian impact of the war, which will mark its one-month anniversary on Thursday.

Russia has also called for a vote later Wednesday in the UN Security Council on its own humanitarian resolution, which has been widely criticized for not referring to its invasion of Ukraine.

Kyslytsya said the Ukraine-backed assembly resolution, drafted by two dozen diplomats from all parts of the world and co-sponsored by nearly 100 countries, focuses on ``the urgent need to elevate the humanitarian suffering on the ground and immediate cessation of hostilities by the Russian Federation.''

Nebenzia warned that adoption of that resolution ``will make a resolution to the situation in Ukraine more difficult.

'' That's because it will likely embolden Ukrainian negotiators and ``nudge them to maintain the current unrealistic position, which is not related to the situation on the ground, nor to the need to tackle the root causes'' of Russia's military action, he said.