US abstains from anti-Russia vote at UN

Washington declined to endorse Kiev’s statement calling for an unconditional ceasefire

The US has abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a Kiev-backed resolution condemning Russia’s actions in the Ukraine conflict.

The resolution on Tuesday, delivered four years after the escalation of the conflict, urged an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire.

In the UN General Assembly vote on the document, 107 countries supported it, 12 – including Belarus, Iran, and North Korea – voted against, and 51, including the US, Armenia, Brazil, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Serbia, and Uzbekistan, abstained.

UN General Assembly President and former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told ARD that the US delegation “deliberately wanted to remove” the requirement of a “lasting and just peace” from the resolution.

“The Americans have always voted for this resolution before,” she said. Now, “for the first time, they haven’t voted for it,” Baerbock noted, claiming the stance was “frustrating.”

Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Anna Evstigneeva, said the document “ignores the complexity of the conflict, interprets the UN Charter in a one-sided manner, and creates obstacles to negotiations.”

She added that, to achieve lasting peace, Kiev should focus on diplomatic efforts, seek compromise solutions, and establish reliable security guarantees for both Russia and Ukraine. Instead, she said, it prefers to initiate new politicized votes.

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UN General Assembly resolutions are advisory in nature and are not legally binding.

Russia says it is seeking a comprehensive peace deal rather than an immediate frontline ceasefire, which it believes Ukraine would merely use to rearm and regroup amid steady battlefield setbacks. Moscow argues the conflict can only be resolved by addressing its “root causes,” and that a sustainable settlement requires Ukraine to withdraw from areas it controls in Donbass – which voted to join Russia in 2022 – commit to demilitarization and “denazification,” abandon its NATO bid, and adopt neutral status.

Russia, the US, and Ukraine held talks in Geneva last week after earlier meetings in Abu Dhabi in January, but territorial disputes — particularly Kiev’s refusal to relinquish its claim to Donbass — reportedly remain the main obstacle to peace.