US and Albania submit resolution to Security Council to condemn referendums
No one doubted that the result of the impromptu referendums that Russia organized to annex the Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia will be overwhelmingly favorable for their integration into the Russian Federation, because Moscow planned it that way. Indeed, the ‘yes’ vote received overwhelming support of 97%.
This Tuesday, Secretary of State for Political Affairs and Peacebuilding, Rosemary Di Carlo, confirmed to the Security Council that the “de facto authorities”, accompanied by soldiers, went door-to-door with ballot boxes to force the population to vote. With this he confirmed the accusations of the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, who denounced on Friday that because of the low participation, the Russian soldiers armed with machine guns visited a large part of the residents “so that they could vote correctly and even provided them of ballot papers with a sign indicating what to vote for.
Di Carlo did not go into those details, but reiterated that unilateral actions to “provide a layer of legitimacy for attempts to forcibly acquire territory from another state, while claiming to represent the will of the people, are not considered under international law as be considered legal” .” The 75-year-old diplomat reiterated that Russia is an “occupying power” and denounced that its troops daily attack civilian targets and water and energy infrastructure, including with drones in Odessa.
With the same determination, other members of the Council, such as France, assured that “never” the outcome of this farce referendum will be recognized, because “can you imagine what it would mean for international legality if it were done?” ambassador. “How can we guarantee the security of other countries?”
The attempts by the Russian ambassador, Vasily Alekseevich Nebenzya, to compare them to the referendum in Kosovo and to justify their use as a way to protect the pro-Russian population of those regions were immediately rejected by the Albanian ambassador, Ferit Hoxha, who described it as “another Russian lie aimed at distorting reality.”
The United States and Albania have even proposed to record the condemnation in the annals of history with a resolution to be voted on in this body next week, depending on how long it takes them to gain broad support from the rest of the members. to get . It is foreseeable that Russia will use its veto power to prevent this, but US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned that if she does so “to protect herself”, she will hand the resolution over to the General Assembly plenary, a wider body whose decisions are not binding. The situation that allows Russia to be a judge and part of this process has questioned the UN, where voices are growing to reform the power distribution in the Security Council and limit the veto power of just five countries – Russia, the US , China, France and the UK.
The Ukrainian conflict has claimed at least 13,844 civilian casualties so far, according to data verified by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights shared by Di Carlo, though he insisted the actual numbers are likely “significantly higher”.
Source: La Verdad
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