New York: The United Nations Security Council is chairing an emergency meeting Tuesday on Ukraine at the request of Kyiv, the United States, 5 European nations, Mexico.
The UNSC meeting over Ukraine is an ‘open’ one and India will also make a statement on the issue. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought to project calm, telling the country: “We are not afraid of anyone or anything. We don’t owe anyone anything. And we won’t give anything to anyone.”
The meeting was called following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the so-called “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics” in eastern Ukraine as “independent” and his orders to Russian troops to “maintain the peace” there.
Putin’s announcement raised fears that an invasion was imminent, if not already underway. A vaguely worded decree signed by Putin did not say if troops were on the move, and it cast the order as an effort to “maintain peace.”
But it appeared to dash the slim remaining hopes of averting a major conflict in Europe that could cause massive casualties, energy shortages on the continent and economic chaos around the globe.
The US representative to the UN said that Putin’s decision to recognise the rebel territories is clearly the basis of Russia’s attempt to create a pretext for the further invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s clear attack on Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is unprovoked. It is an attack on Ukraine’s status as a UN member state. It violates basic principles of international law,” the representative said at the UNSC meeting on Ukraine crisis.
