🧵 This UN resolution vote on Ukraine is worth paying attention to. A brief thread on the Trump administration's bullying under way in the background. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 18:58
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Every year the US has backed a UN General Assembly vote noting the principles of the UN Charter & Russia's violation of those in Ukraine. Now the US is threatening to vote against that & is pushing a new resolution in the Security Council. But it gets worse than that.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 18:58
The new US sponsored resolution - which unsurprisingly enjoys Russian support - is three sentences. It does not identify Russia as the aggressor nor does it note the UN Charter's prohibtion on acquiring territory by force. "It looks like something the Russians drafted," one diplomat told me.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 18:59
That’s not all. The US is demanding that Ukraine withdraw its own UNGA resolution and putting considerable pressure on Kyiv to that end. It hopes the UNSC res will derail the UNGA one. US wanted to adopt it Monday morning; China, which holds UNSC presidency, delayed vote to Tuesday, as I understand.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 18:59
US vote could be blocked if 7/15 states on council (see image below) vote against or abstain. It is unclear whether those numbers can be met. Denmark, Greece, Slovenia likely to oppose. Others might be persuaded, like Panama. But not clear whether threshold will be met. That takes us to option two.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 19:00
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The other route to blocking this would be a veto by France or the UK. Both have proposed amendments which would kill the text for the Russians. US might take note. But both countries' leaders are in Washington this coming week & veto would be explosive. I am told France more "solid" than UK on this.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 19:01
US is playing hardball on the issue. It has issued bellicose démarches to a wide range of states, including allies, which, I am told, are full of reference to Trump, highly aggressive & threatening—"like something one would have expected from the Nazis or Soviets in the 1930s", one person told me.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) 23 February 2025 at 19:01
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