Why Russia defies the UN and 141 nations

Russia has been demanded by 141 sovereign nations to withdraw its military forces from Ukraine. In its usual arrogant, cavalier, and defiant manner, Russia declared that it wasn’t going to be affected at all by that non-binding UN General Assembly Resolution pushed by the US and the EU. Instead, the Kremlin immediately instructed its envoy in the UN Security Council to veto that resolution. We aren’t surprised by Putin's move, as much as we are angry at Moscow and dismayed at the UN's powerlessness to enforce its own resolution.

Vladimir Putin, like his allies Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un, doesn’t take the UN seriously. The UN is becoming a toothless tiger --all roar and no bite. It is the UN's founding fathers' historic error in judgment to allow some powerful countries including Russia, to wield a veto power. Thus one veto eliminates the legal effects of 141 nations' decisions. The UN, from the very beginning, programmed itself to be an elitist world organization, where the votes of powerless nations like the Philippines and Ukraine, aren’t considered equal to the votes of Russia, China, USA, UK, and France. The UN's founding fathers committed a historic faux pas when it ordained the supremacy of five countries, instead of making the United Nations a community of equals whether they are as poor or as Burundi, Somalia, or Mozambique or as wealthy as America, Switzerland, or Norway.

With 141 voting against Russia, seven voting in its favor and 35 abstaining, the UN Resolution is nothing but a helpless cry of too many toothless tigers in the wilderness of supposedly sovereign nations, but where one stroke of veto by a superpower can make the voice of many nations without any legal or binding consequence. I have more respect for the seven who displayed their true colors than the 35 abstaining nations which are virtual chameleons, wanting to ride on two horses or to remain impervious in the midst of a confrontation between good and evil. China, which led the abstentions, should have listened to Confucius who famously warned that the man who chases two rabbits shall end up not catching either one.

China, India, and South Africa are co-members with Russia in the emerging BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) power block and 32 other nations abstained. The others either received massive aid and assistance from Moscow or have existing military and political treaties with Russia. India has been very close to Russia because of oil and most of its weaponry. India's massive industrialization led it to increase by more than 100% its volume of oil imports from Moscow. The other abstaining nations have some strings attached to their necks by Putin, nations like Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, China, Congo, Cuba, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Togo, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

The UN Resolution reiterated the October 12, 2022 call by 143 nations for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Philippines voted in favor of the Resolution along with Japan, Australia, Canada, and most of the ASEAN member nations, except only Vietnam and Laos. Last year, the UN denounced in no uncertain terms Moscow's referendum in Ukraine eastern territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia to become annexed to the Russian Federation. Russia, along with China, North Korea, and Iran are now the infamous bad boys in the international community of nations. But the UN has no power to expel it from its membership because of Moscow's internally-embedded veto power, enshrined incongruously in the UN Charter.

Russia, like China, is the monster that the UN itself has invented. Today, there is no resolution, even if signed by 200 nations, that can compel one defiant, arrogant and cavalier Kremlin to leave the security council or be expelled from it. The UN from the very day of its founding in 1944 up to today has disabled itself from ejecting a notoriously obnoxious nation from the roster of the general assembly. The intrinsically-wrong veto power is the UN's congenital defect that should be removed if the UN has enough balls to face a major surgical operation of its charter. The way I see it, the UN has programmed itself to be paralyzed by its own organic cancer called veto power. If it does not remove that cancer, the UN will die a natural death. Sayang.