US on Monday sided with Russia on a UN General Assembly draft resolution that called for a de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the war in Ukraine.
Washington, which has in the past voted for resolutions that favoured Kyiv and condemned Moscow, shifted its stance amid a deepening war of words between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
The 193-member UN General Assembly voted on the draft resolution ‘Advancing a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine’ tabled by Ukraine and its European allies, which was adopted with 93 votes in favour, 65 abstentions and 18 votes against.
Russian allies Belarus, North Korea and Sudan were among those who backed Moscow over Kyiv on the resolution, which came on the third anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war.
India, which has called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy, abstained from voting.
The resolution — which won far less support compared to previous ones on the three-year-old war — strongly criticised Russia. It called for a “de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine, marked by enormous destruction and human suffering, including among the civilian population, in line with the Charter of the United Nations and international law”.
The US later also backed Russia at a vote of the Security Council.
The relations between the US and Ukraine have soured following Donald Trump’s return to the White House last month.
Last week, he called Ukraine’s Zelensky a “dictator” and claimed that is highly unpopular. He also called for him to “move fast” to end the war, a day after Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia without Kyiv.
Following the talks between the US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia last Tuesday, Trump called the Russia-Ukraine war “senseless” and emphasised that it should never have occurred.
“Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the barbarianism that’s going on over there. Soldiers are being killed by thousands on a weekly basis. Apart from Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, a lot of Koreans have been killed,” he said.
According to reports, Washington has given Kyiv more than $60 billion in military aid since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to cross into Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
In December, Zelensky said 43,000 Ukrainian troops and 1,98,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war. The UN estimates that about 12,500 civilians have lost their lives in Ukraine.
