By Janet Ekstract
NEW YORK- On Monday, Ukraine announced a request that the U.N. Security Council eliminate Russia’s permanent membership over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In a formal statement, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said: “Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN to resume the application of the UN Charter in the context of the legitimacy of the Russian Federation’s presence in the UN, to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole.” The statement further stated that the issue of the status of Russia’s membership to the UN and its permanent membership to the UN Security Council remains “unsettled” from “the point of view of international law.” Last Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv is preparing to take official steps to prove that Russia’s presence in the U.N. Security Council is “illegal” and to have it removed from the body. In addition, on December 14, two U.S. lawmakers had introduced a resolution to oust Russia from the UN Security Council, claiming Russia’s presence there “violates the purposes and principles of the United Nations”
On Dec. 14, two U.S. lawmakers introduced a resolution to oust Russia from the U.N. Security The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement also referenced Article 4 of the UN Charter that it states stipulates that “the admission of peace-loving states to membership in the U.N. is affected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council and only in this way.” The ministry added: “The Russian Federation has never gone through the legal procedure to be admitted to membership and, therefore, illegally occupies the seat of the Soviet Union in the U.N. Security Council. From a legal and political point of view, there can be one conclusion: Russia is an usurper of the Soviet Union’s seat in the U.N. Security Council.”
The statement further argued that Russia did not meet the main criteria for membership in the U.N. according to the first paragraph of Article 4 of the U.N. Charger that mentions “membership in the U.N. is open to all peace-loving states.” In addition, the statement continued: “The actions of the Russian Federation are contrary to the concept of a ‘peace-loving’ state. Three decades of its illegal presence in the U.N. have been marked by wars and seizure of other countries’ territories, forceful change of internationally recognized borders, and attempts to satisfy its invasive and neo-imperial ambitions.” Also, the statement made mention of Russia’s “special military operation” on February 24 while stating that Russia’ annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well as the recent annexation of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Kherson regions are a “violation of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine.” In conclusion, the statement added: “We believe that, guided by the principle of equality of U.N. members, the Russian Federation should follow the same international legal path for admission to membership in the organization as other countries did…The return of the Russian Federation to the U.N. in the future can be considered only if it complies with the criteria for U.N. membership.” The statement said that Russia should only be admitted to U.N. membership after it “fulfills the conditions for memberhip in the organization” and “upon the recommendation of the U.N. Security Council as provided for in Paragraph 2 of Article 4 of the UN Charter.”
