Emergency session

U.N. General Assembly to meet in rare emergency session on Russian invasion

It will be only the 11th such session in history.

By MAEVE SHEEHEY

The U.N. General Assembly will meet Monday for its 11th-ever Emergency Special Session on Russia’s attack on Ukraine after the Security Council voted in favor on Sunday.

Eleven member nations voted in favor of the resolution to call the session, with only Russia voting against it. China, the United Arab Emirates and India abstained from the vote.

Previously, Russia used its veto power to shut down a vote by the Security Council, but the nation was not able to veto Sunday’s action because of a long-standing resolution allowing certain General Assembly meetings to be called around member vetoes. After Sunday’s vote, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that “Russia cannot and will not veto accountability.”

“To the Russian officers and soldiers, I say the world is watching,” she said. “Photographic and video evidence is mounting. And you will be held to account for your actions. We will not let atrocities slide.”

Thomas-Greenfield also called on the Kremlin to turn down its nuclear rhetoric, referencing Putin ordering Russian nuclear forces on high alert. She said earlier on Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that she wasn’t surprised by the Russian autocrat’s language “because Putin has tried every means possible to actually put fear in the world.”

The Ukrainian representative brought up Putin’s nuclear rhetoric at the Security Council meeting Sunday, saying, “The world must take this threat very seriously.”

The ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, described the death and destruction in his country as a result of Russian aggression, saying he will work with UNICEF on the issue.

Kyslytsya switched to Russian at the end of his remarks, saying: “To conclude, I wish to turn personally to the ambassador of the Russian federation,” and asking him to stop defending Kremlin aggression.

“There is always place in life for choices. There are always options,” the Ukrainian ambassador said to end his speech. “For example, one can remain a human being, a person, or they can continue to defend evil. And this is a choice which lies with every individual, always.”

The Russian representative claimed in his remarks after the vote that “The Security Council failed to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

He continued ongoing Kremlin rhetoric that the attack was due to “crimes” propagated by Ukraine in Donbas, which the Russian government has claimed as an excuse for attacks. “We did not see even a hint of an attempt to reach a constructive solution of the council,” the representative said, calling the resolution “one-sided” and “imbalanced.”

There will be another emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday, after French President Emmanuel Macron requested it and Mexico joined on the resolution. The Mexican ambassador to the U.N. said the meeting will be used to analyze the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. “France will, alongside Mexico, submit a draft resolution in order to guarantee unfettered humanitarian access to meet the urgent needs of the people in Ukraine,” the French representative said.

Five countries (the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France) have veto power in the Security Council, but since November 1950, any nation has been able to call for an emergency session of the General Assembly despite a no vote from one of the five. That measure was enacted during the Korean War, a time in which those five nations rarely agreed on anything.