3 March 2022
Check how your country voted in the UN debates on Ukraine in the last few days, or found that, regrettably, its permanant representative had pressing engagements elsewhere and failed to vote altogether.
Yesterday, 2 March 2022, the UN General Assembly confirmed Russia’s richly deserved global pariah status by overwhelmingly supporting a draft resolution (ES-11/1) condemning its aggression against the sovereign state of Ukraine and demanding the immediate withdrawal of its military forces. The results were:
Yes: 141 | No: 5 | Abstentions: 35 | Non-Voting: 12 | Total voting membership: 193
Wikipedia has a clear table showing how the individual votes (or absences) of member states were recorded. If you wish to check the primary (UN) source on which its article is based, this can be found here.
The most striking feature of these voting figures is, of course, that only 4 of the UN’s total membership of 193 states voted with Russia against the motion, although it must be admitted that the figure would have soared to 5 had Venezuela not been denied a vote on the grounds that it had failed to pay its UN dues for the previous two years. By its support for the motion, Turkey has probably disqualified itself from being considered as a mediator by the Russians (or maybe not), if and when they have the sense to accept one. I was disappointed to see that South Africa had abstained (I was not alone), but no longer surprised at the same reaction by India, which is so heavily dependent on arms supplies from Russia. With honourable exceptions, weak former Soviet ‘republics’ clearly thought it prudent to make themselves scarce.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has announced that tanks and other military equipment captured from the invading Russians need not be declared for tax purposes. The example set by this enlightened move is sure to be applauded by tax-payers’ alliances the world over.