Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 3 – Never before has Moscow been so internationally isolated as now. At the United Nations General Assembly, 141 of the 193 countries voted for a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.
Only four countries – Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea – voted with Russia against the resolution. Thirty-five states, including China, did abstain but clearly less because they did not see Moscow as being at fault than because they did not want to anger Vladimir Putin (undocs.org/ru/A/ES-11/L.1 and graniru.org/Politics/World/Europe/Ukraine/m.284543.html).
During the Cold War, Moscow could count on its satellites and clients to vote for it in the General Assembly. Now because of its criminal actions in Ukraine, the number of such countries has been reduced to the point that only international outcasts and not only they are prepared to vote for the Kremlin.
Unfortunately and inappropriately, the Russian Federation is still a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a veto there and can be counted on to try to limit consideration of its actions to that body rather than risk future condemnation by the broader UN General Assembly.
The time has come to strip Russia of its seat on the Security Council, an action that would reflect both its declining position in the world and the criminal behavior of its current ruler, behavior that the world as a whole now condemns.
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