In a statement issued on Monday, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine called on the U.N. member states to “deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and to exclude it from the U.N. as a whole.”
As a matter of fact, the ministry has joined demands from Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine around the world, including the Ukrainian World Congress, which called on the U.N. to “immediately expel the Russian Federation from the U.N. Security Council” as long ago as early April 2022. “Allowing Russia a platform from which they can tell their lies to justify their criminal aggression against Ukrainians is a silent complicity in their actions,” said UWC President Paul Grod.
However, the Foreign Ministry goes further, urging to kick Russia out of not only the Security Council but the United Nations as a whole. The statement also provides legal grounds for such exclusion, explaining why the Russian Federation is not a legitimate U.N. member but rather a free rider.
The U.N. Charter sets forth a procedure for a country to go through to become a member of the United Nations. Unlike the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which found themselves in a similar situation, Russia has never undergone this procedure.
As a result, the “current U.N. Charter does not contain the words ‘Russian Federation.’ These words are also missing from Article 23 of the U.N. Charter in particular, which lists the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council,” the statement reads.
The document also questions the very right of Russia to join the U.N. in general, as it “failed to meet the main criteria for membership in the Organization. Paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the Charter clearly states that membership in the U.N. is open to all peace-loving states.”
“The actions of the Russian Federation are contrary to the concept of a ‘peace-loving’ state,” the ministry points out. “Three decades of its illegal presence in the U.N. have been marked by wars and seizure of other countries’ territories, forceful change of internationally recognized borders, and attempts to satisfy its invasive and neo-imperial ambitions.”
In the document, the Foreign Ministry cites numerous facts of crimes and Charter violations committed by Russia and calls on the U.N. member states to “resume the application of the U.N. Charter in the context of the legitimacy of the Russian Federation’s presence in the U.N.”
“Only after Russia fulfills the conditions for membership in the Organization, contained in paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the U.N. Charter, could Russia be admitted to membership by a decision of the U.N. General Assembly upon the recommendation of the U.N. Security Council, as provided for in paragraph 2 of Article 4 of the UN Charter,” the statement concludes.
