The UN Security Council met at the call of the United States today, to discuss the situation around Ukraine and the deployment of Russian troops near its borders. The United States no doubt hoped to gang up against Russia by bringing in some of the smaller members of the council in support of America’s position. There were those who joined that crowd, like Albania and Ghana, but the overall debate probably didn’t go exactly the way the United States wanted. China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun told the Council that China opposed calling the meeting by America and Britain as a measure which mitigated against a diplomatic solution to the situation.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia again reiterated that Russia had no intent to invade Ukraine. He also underlined the fact that relations with Ukraine would have remained very brotherly and friendly, except for the 2014 coup that brought to power extremists, fascists and Russophobes, which proceeded to create divisive policies against the use of the Russian language and a split in the Orthodox Church. He also remarked that the increase of arms being provided to Ukraine may later be used by them against their fellow countrymen in Donbas. He also went through the multiple deployments of U.S. forces throughout the world, the amount of money the U.S. spends on military forces, etc. Not least, Nebenzia emphasized that the U.S. made no mention of the Minsk agreements, which would actually resolve the Ukraine crisis: “As for the calls to settle the crisis around Ukraine, we are all in favor of that. But there is only one dimension to that crisis – the internal Ukrainian dimension. The situation can be improved only once Kiev implements the Minsk Agreements that I already mentioned and that envisage a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Luhansk in the first place,” Nebenzia said.
