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RUSSIA VETOED A Western-backed resolution condemning the Crimea referendum at a UN Security Council emergency vote today but China abstained, isolating Moscow further on the Ukraine crisis.
The draft resolution, which says tomorrow’s referendum would have no validity, got 13 votes in the 15-member council. But it was rejected when permanent member Russia exercised its veto.
The resolution had declared that the referendum on the autonomous region coming under Kremlin rule “cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of Crimea.”
China often backs Russia at the council, especially on Syria-related votes, and Western powers presented its abstention as the best possible outcome from today’s vote.
“Russia totally isolated at UNSC. 13 vote for Resolution. Even China abstains,” US deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, tweeted after what was the seventh UN emergency session since the crisis began.
“Russia, isolated, alone and wrong, blocked the resolution’s passage,” US ambassador Samantha Power told the council.
“This is a sad and remarkable moment,” she said.
Invasion
Ukraine accused Russian forces of invading a southeast region of the country that neighbors Crimea. Thanking the UN for its efforts, Kiev warned the world the crisis had suddenly got worse.
“This is something which changes the situation dramatically,” Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Yuriy Sergeyev, told reporters.
The United States was looking into the reports but would see any new Russian troop movement in south Ukraine as an “outrageous escalation” of the crisis over Crimea, Power warned.
“For something additional, even more escalatory to have occurred would be flying in the face of everything you have heard here today,” she told reporters.
The Security Council session, which lasted more than an hour, degenerated into the usual recriminations between Western powers and Ukraine stacked up in one corner, and Russia in the other.
‘It’s a sad day’
France, like Ukraine, harkened back to the days of the Cold War.
French ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters that the impending annexation of Crimea was “totally unacceptable.”
“It’s a sad day, really, because we have the impression to go back 30 or 40 years,” he added.
British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant demanded Russia work to find a peaceful solution and “take notice of its isolation.”
“If Russia fails to respond to Ukraine’s outstretched hand, it will lead to further escalation of tension in the region and further consequences for Russia,” he said.
The United States had drafted the resolution in very measured terms so that it could be accepted by Beijing.
China
Chinese ambassador Liu Jieyi justified Beijing’s abstention by saying that passing a resolution at this moment would “only result in confrontation and further complicate the situation.”
“China has always been fair and objective. We will continue to mediate and promote dialogue so as to play a constructive role in seeking a political solution to the crisis,” he said.
Beijing has long defended the need to respect territorial integrity and does not back interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
When the Security Council ruled on a similar international crisis, between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Beijing abstained.
‘PR’
Russia’s veto had been certain after last-ditch talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov broke down in London yesterday.
“It is a secret to no one that the Russian Federation will vote against the resolution,” Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council before the vote.
He defended this weekend’s referendum as necessary to fill the “legal vacuum” that arose “as a result of an unconstitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine.”
He later singled out Ukraine for “going beyond” permissible rhetoric, France for failing to mention killings in Russian-speaking Ukraine and the United States for its “PR”.
“Madam Power spoke of truth. Was Washington telling its truth about its role in the development of the crisis?” he thundered.
“Why are you negating the right of the people in Crimea to express their will in the referendum tomorrow?”
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So what. Saudi Arabia is supporting Hillary, and donating money to her. I’d take Russia over an Islamic fundamentalist state any day, and it amazes me that liberals simply don’t care
@Homer’s imp son: I care but its stupid that it has to come down to these two eejits. There are other candidates out there better than Trump or Clinton, maybe not the best but better than these two, all people have to do is vote for them if they weren’t such sheep.
After America rejected the only half sane candidate Bernie Sanders, and his followers were mocked, I think it’s perfectly clear that the American people are beyond redemption
Makes sense, Hillary and her backers will go to war with Russia if she gets elected. Trump wants to improve relations. Its a no brainer ffs!
@Chris: Hillary works for the military complex financial squad anyway, make Russia the enemy and then sell more weapons to NATO countries?
Whether you like it or not America is s Republic, and as such the people have chosen the candidates. There are five names on the ballot, that’s four more than in Russia
I think Putin knows the Military Industrial Complex are backing Clinton and they are gunning for Russia.
There’s a reason the neo-con warhawks are backing her.
Well she did say Putin was the new Hitler in an interview last year….Neocons are wetting their pants at the thought of her in charge although saying that Trump is a complete clown so the options are both FUBAR.
They (Neo Zio/ Cons) hate Christian Russia and the fact that Putin outsmarted them in Ukraine and Syria.
@alan
@Alan Tright: Yes to create the same situations that caused WW1…
Alois, Are you saying that the Americans are going to assassinate the Archduke?
The whole situation is absurd, it’s like a school yard game of ‘whose side are you on?’.
Well if anyone knows what is best for America it’s Vladimir Putin. I’m sure he has the Americans best interests at heart.
Putin is a man of few words and many deeds. Trump is a man with a big mouth and nothing else.
That’s not true… Trump also has small hands.. and we all know what that means… small gloves…
At the end of the day the planet is safer with a trump and putin then a hitlery at the helm.. the neo cons are just waiting to get going’ as one of them said ‘on nukes’ “what’s the point of having them if you can’t use them”.. and with theresa may saying nukes are not off the table and would us em’ hitlery and may together would be an absolute disaster… interesting times ahead
Clinton didn’t have any issues with potentially closer relations with Russia when she was leading the ill-fated Russian Reset: “On 6 March 2009 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Sergei Lavrov with a red button with the English word “reset” and the Roman alphabet transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet word “peregruzka”. It was intended that this would be theRussian word for “reset”.”
Later found to be a very poor translation. In any case the fact that Clinton as Secretary of State tried to thaw relations is hardly news or an issue. Putin didn’t play ball, he started to assert Russian ‘power’ again and the attempt failed. Nothing wrong with trying to warm relations but we all know what Russia is really like now and that Trump is at least somewhat tied to the worst aspects of the regime there and in the Ukraine.
@Gerard McAuliffe: Ukraine is full of neo Nazis who have issues with Stalin and blame this generation of Russians for him as they ethnically cleanse anyone in Ukraine with Russian blood using neo Nazi symbols on their uniforms, far right paramilitaries and money from the IMF to buy weapons?
We would all take Putin over Hillary you know it’s true!!
@Alex Jones: Why don’t you try living in Russia for a while before you commit to browntongueing that little runt of a dictator?
Putler could certainly give Trump a lot of good advice about acquiring wealth by abusing power; it is estimated that he and his family have creamed off at least $20 billion of the wealth of Russia, a country where millions live in or close to outright poverty. Even if Trump is worth half the billions he claims to have, he is only trotting after the Russian dictator.
On the other hand, although he was – and still is at heart – a KGB thug, there is really little that Putler could teach Trump about mendacity, duplicity, bigotry, disregard for human rights and respect for other countries’ sovereignty.
Come on Fintan, name one leader who’s been financially impoverished by power. They are all corrupted by it even at small nation and local levels. It’s a lot of pots calling a lot of kettles black-arsed.
As for Putin, I think we can safely call him a dictator, and doesn’t seem perturbed by morals. He is however one of the most capable and pragmatic world leaders in a long time, the sufferings he has caused is a lot less numerous than those caused by the war on terror and similar western campaigns of the same era. So both ‘sides’ need to condemned together. The only real difference is that Putin, while benefitting himself, has been openly acting as a ruthless champion for his own nations interests whereas the US/EU leadership have been covertly championing the interests of ‘the (their) market’, regardless of the people.
@Greg Blake: Can no one see how evil Hillary and Obama is, Obama will spend 1 trillion dollars on new nukes in the next 10 years, why???
Obama is out of office in 4 months. How exactly will he achieve this spending? Must be a really nice pension.
@Dave O Keeffe: He has set it up already.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/04/18/Why-US-Spending-1-Trillion-Nuclear-Weapons
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/us-ramping-up-major-renewal-in-nuclear-arms.html?_r=0
@Dave O Keeffe: Obama is war mad, the military financial complex mad.
http://fortune.com/2016/09/13/us-israel-military-aid/
I just want to know what trump and putin are smoking lol jees louise it must be some strong stuff lol
“His remarks were a clear allusion to Trump” Sounds more like paranoia to me. Hillary and Obama are only using Russia and Putin to blacken Trump because they can’t say what was great about Obama’s reign as president because Obama and Hillary belong to the same party and to the same government?
So Hillary can’t condemn herself or Obama or say what she is going to do because it will be the same as Obama’s but she can be racist towards Russia, call the half of America who supports Trump as traitors and anti American, she spreads muck and uses her pals in the media to spin the muck, just like the McCarty Trials all over again…
“We are carefully watching what is happening in the United States and we, of course, view with sympathy those who publicly state that it is necessary to build a relationship with Russia, on basis of equality,”
If you were a leader of a country would you want the candidate like Hillary that says she would start a war with you and Iran or a candidate that wants peace, what would you want?
You have an awful happen of ending statements with question marks.
@Dave O Keeffe: Yes I do but what do people want, peace or war with Russia as Hillary said she would attack Russia and Iran, vote for Hillary and she probably start WW3. Is that what people want.
Then you ask a question and use a full stop.
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