Roving Periscope: Now India ‘snubs’ Russia, votes against it at the UN

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Relentlessly pursuing an aggressive, no-nonsense, and independent foreign policy and refusing to join rival camps, India on Monday indirectly snubbed Russia also when it voted to reject Moscow’s demand for a secret ballot in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for a draft resolution on Ukraine.

The action in the UNGA came hours after Russia carried out strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, where at least 10 people were killed and around 60 others wounded across the war-ravaged Ukraine.

India has not yet directly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and maintained that they must resolve the crisis through diplomacy and dialogue.

In the UNGA, India voted in favor of a procedural, public vote called by Albania, rejecting Russia’s plan for a secret ballot on a draft resolution to denounce Moscow’s “illegal” annexation of four areas of Ukraine.

Twenty-four countries (including Russia, China, and Iran) did not vote.

According to the media reports, Russia insisted on a secret ballot for the resolution. After 107 UN members, including India, voted in favor of a recorded vote, Moscow’s request for a secret ballot was rejected. Only 13 countries supported Moscow’s request for a secret ballot, and 39 others abstained.

On Monday, the 193-member UNGA voted on this draft resolution denouncing Russia’s “illegal so-called referendums” and “attempted illegal annexation” of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.

After the motion to hold a recorded vote was adopted, Russia appealed against the ruling of the President of the UNGA and sought reconsideration of the decision to adopt the motion by a recorded vote, but this request was also rejected.

Russia’s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia claimed the UN members had “become witnesses to an outrageous fraud in which the UNGA’s President, unfortunately, played a key role.”

“We were not given the floor to make a point of order (the indicator light at our seat is still on), our statement was distorted, and now UN member states are being robbed of their right to express their opinion freely.

“This is an unprecedented manipulation undermining the authority of the UNGA and the United Nations as a whole. Of course, in such circumstances we opted to not take part in the vote,” he said.

In September, India abstained while Russia vetoed a draft UNSC resolution tabled by the US and Albania to condemn Moscow’s “illegal referenda” and declared the annexation of four Ukrainian territories as invalid.

The 15-nation UN Security Council (UNSC) had voted on the draft resolution on “Illegal So-Called Referenda in Ukraine”, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties at the Kremlin to annex the four Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions. As Russia vetoed it, the resolution could not be adopted.

Of the 15-nation UNSC, 10 nations voted for the resolution. China, Gabon, India, and Brazil abstained.

UNGA President Csaba Korosi reconvened the Emergency Special Session on Ukraine where the US said the European Union, on behalf of a cross-regional drafting group of several dozen UN member states, was working on a resolution to be introduced in the UNGA and considered condemning Russia’s actions as a clear violation of the UN Charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The draft resolution would repeat the demand that Russia must withdraw its forces from Ukraine and from the war-torn country’s internationally recognized borders and cease its unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.

The resolution would also call upon all states, international organizations, and United Nations specialized agencies not to recognize any alteration by Russia of the status of any or all of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, or Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, and to refrain from any action or dealing that might be interpreted as recognizing any such altered status.

In New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the escalation of hostilities was in no one’s interest and noted that India was ready to support all such efforts aimed at de-escalating the situation.

“India is deeply concerned at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including the targeting of infrastructure and deaths of civilians,” he said, urging the immediate cessation of hostilities.

India has abstained from votes on the Ukraine conflict in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.