India abstains from UN vote on Russian resolution calling for ‘protection of civilians’ in Ukraine
The document introduced by Moscow made no reference to its own role in the ongoing crisis.
India on Wednesday abstained from voting from a United Nations Security Council resolution introduced by Russia on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, PTI reported.
The resolution had called for the protection of civilians, a negotiated ceasefire for enabling their evacuation, and had emphasised on the “need for the parties concerned to agree on humanitarian pauses to this end”. The document made no reference to Russia’s own role in the ongoing crisis.
The resolution was not adopted in the Council, as it did not get the nine supporting votes that were required for it to be passed. Among the 15-country grouping, only China and Russia voted in favour of the resolution, while the rest of the countries abstained from the vote.
This was the fifth instance of India abstaining from voting on a resolution on the Ukraine crisis in the United Nations. The last such resolution, adopted by United Nations Human Rights Council on March 4, pertained to the setting up of an international commission to investigate the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
The United States’ Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said it was “unconscionable” that Russia would have the audacity to introduce a resolution asking the international community to solve a humanitarian crisis that Moscow had created.
“The United States intends to abstain on this text because, to state the obvious, Russia does not care about the deteriorating humanitarian conditions, or the millions of lives and dreams the war has shattered,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “If they cared, they would stop fighting.”
The ambassador said that the resolution did not acknowledge Russia’s culpability in the Ukraine crisis. “Russia alone is to blame for the war in Ukraine,” she said.
Thomas-Greenfield also repeated the United States’ allegation that Russia may be “planning to use chemical or biological agents”.
Just now, in a unified protest vote, 13 members of the Security Council abstained from Russia’s farcical resolution deflecting blame for the humanitarian crisis it has created in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/fVoPGdJzHR
— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) March 23, 2022
On the other hand, China’s Permanent Representative Zhang Jun said that a vote in favour of the resolution would be a call for the global community to prioritise the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, ANI reported.