On December 9, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution “Problem of the militarization of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov”. As many as 63 countries supported the resolution, 19 countries voted against it and 66 abstained from voting.
It should be noted that the General Assembly adopts the resoultion with such name for the second time. However, the fundamentally new provisions have been added to the current document
For instance, the resoultion calls on the Russian Federation to “refrain from extending its jurisdiction over the nuclear facilities and material in Crimea" and also expresses concern over the use of seized Ukrainian military industry enterprises in the occupied Crimea by the Russian Federation.
The resolution mentions the prohibition for the occupying power to compel resident of the occupied territories to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces, “including through pressure or propaganda that is aimed at securing voluntary enlistment”, and calls for Moscow to stop such activity.
The document also focuses on the social and economic aspects of Russian aggression.
“The security concerns and the build-up of forces in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov regions further destabilize the economy and social services, particularly in the coastal regions of Ukraine," the document reads.
The UN General Assembly expresses its concern over Russia’s putting deliberate obstacles to travels through the Kerch Strait, particularly “under pretext of military trainings” in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
The current resolution as well as the previous one condemns the construction of a bridge over the Kerch Strait which facilitates further the militarization of Crimea and “restricts the size of ships that can reach the Ukrainian ports on the Azov coast”.
The build-up of military presence of the Russian Federation in parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and intimidation of merchant ships “further aggravate the economic and social situation in the broader Donetsk region already affected by the temporary occupation of Crimea”.
The General Assembly of the United Nations condemns visits of Russian officials to Crimea and calls on all UN member-states to refrain from trips to that region that are not agreed with Ukraine.
In addition, the UN resolution calls on all member-states to cooperation with the United Nations “to encourage and support efforts to put an end to the Russian occupation of Crimea as rapidly as possible and to refrain from any dealings with the Russian Federation regarding Crimea that are inconsistent with this aim”.
The draft resolution has been prepared by 39 countries, including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Ukraine, Italy, Sweden, the Baltic countries, Hungary, Bulgaria.
The UN General Assembly passed the previous resolution with the same name on December 18, 2018.
The latest Tweet from the permanent mission of Ukraine to the United Nations reads, “Ukraine is sincerely grateful to all countries that have supported the present resolution”.
In the meantime, the Russian Foreign Office came up with a statement claiming that the draft resolution of the UN General Assembly concerning Crimea that had been prepared by the Ukrainian delegation, contains “inadmissible accusations against Russia and is based on distorted information”. And Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, went as far as to say that the Ukrainian permanent mission deliberately timed the date of voting on the resolution to the Normandy summit in order to “impede the constructive course of the meeting in Paris”.
The newspaper Holos Ukrainy
