President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the UN Security Council with a proposal to reform the organization and cancel the right of veto enjoyed by Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council.
Here are the main statements of Zelensky:
- The organization is at a dead end regarding aggressions. Humanity no longer relies on the UN when it comes to protecting the sovereign borders of nations. But Ukraine has a solution.
- It is Russia that renders the UN incompetent and takes its seat there illegally due to behind-the-scenes manipulations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The veto in the hands of the aggressor is what drove the UN into a dead end.
- Ukraine has a solution — reforming the UN, in particular using the right of veto, so that it is not used by aggressors.
- The UN General Assembly should be given a real opportunity to override the veto. Provided a two-thirds vote is obtained, which will reflect the will of the nations of the world, the veto must be overcome. And the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly must be binding for all member states.
- The UN Security Council must be fully accountable to the nations of the world and expanded to include the states of Asia, Africa, Europe, both Americas, and the countries of the Pacific Ocean. All members of the General Assembly who have not been recognized as aggressors should have access to the work of the Security Council and its auxiliary bodies. At the same time, the participation of any state that started the war must be suspended.
- A system of preventive prevention of aggression through previous sanctions is needed.
- Russia must completely withdraw all troops from Ukraine, including the Black Sea Fleet, within the internationally recognized Ukrainian borders of 1991. Ukraine must have control over all its territories and economic zones in the Black and Azov Seas, as well as in the Kerch Strait.
- The "Peace Formula" proposed by Ukraine is fully based on the principles of the UN Charter and resolutions adopted by the General Assembly.
The President added that Ukraine is ready to work on reforming the UN together with the countries participating in the "Peace Formula".
- The UN Security Council is a UN body responsible for maintaining international peace and security and has the right to make decisions binding on all members of the organization. Permanent members of the Security Council are China, the Russian Federation, the United States, Great Britain and France, and ten non-permanent members are elected for a two-year term. Ukraine was last elected in 2016-2017. Permanent members have veto power, that is, they can block any decision, even if everyone else supports it.
- In January 2023, Ukraine initiated a process aimed at excluding Russia from the Security Council and the UN in general, because it "occupied" the place of the USSR there.
- Russia always blocks resolutions regarding aggression against Ukraine, so the Ukrainian side asks to exclude Russia from the UN Security Council. In September 2022, the head of the European Council called for Russia to be stripped of its membership, and the United States supported the idea of reforming the work of the Security Council — they propose to change the rules for applying the right of veto, as well as its composition.
- On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine during the UN meeting. For more than a year and a half of the great war, the members of the Security Council did not exclude Russia from the organization, did not deprive it of the possibility of presiding and the right of veto. According to the Vice-Chancellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Myrta Vollmer, most of the member states of the UN Security Council do not share Ukraineʼs desire to exclude Russia from this body.