A forthright effort by the U.S. to reshape debate at the UN on the third anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine has sparked European consternation and shone a light on shifting global attitudes toward the war. Rather than work with Ukraine and the European Union to draft a resolution marking the anniversary – as President Joe Biden’s administration had done in the past – President Donald Trump’s new administration attempted to stop Kyiv from tabling a text at the UN. Instead, Washington used the opportunity to present its own proposal for peace talks, which, in sharp contrast to previous UN resolutions, mentioned neither Russia’s aggression nor Ukraine’s sovereignty. While Ukraine and its European allies fought to stymie Washington’s initiative, many non-Western members of the UN chose to keep a low profile to avoid alienating either side, unlike during the war’s first phase, when an embattled Ukraine was able to draw on considerable support from around the world. The episode seems likely to presage further trouble ahead at the UN over Ukraine and other issues. Over the last three years, Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU have coordinated to push through a series of UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Moscow’s aggression, reaffirming Kyiv’s sovereignty and calling for a just peace. Ukrainian and EU officials worked up a similar text in late January and early February, keeping U.S. officials in the loop as they drafted the language. President Trump’s diplomatic outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin – and the Russian-U.S. summit in Riyadh on 18 February – cast a shadow over the process. But the U.S. gave no hint of its new diplomatic posture at the UN until the afternoon of 21 February, when it urged Ukraine to drop its proposed resolution for the Assembly and circulated an alternative three-paragraph motion that included no criticism of Russia and no reference to Ukraine’s territorial integrity, instead simply encouraging rapid progress toward peace. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected this demarche, and the U.S. and EU laboured to rally support for their respective drafts over the weekend.
The Ukrainian-European resolution secured 93 votes in favour, with eighteen UN members (including Russia and the U.S.) opposed.
The dispute culminated in the General Assembly on the morning of 24 February, when the Assembly voted on both texts. The Ukrainian-European resolution secured 93 votes in favour, with eighteen UN members (including Russia and the U.S.) opposed. The U.S. resolution also got 93 votes, but only after France led a successful effort to amend the draft to include references to Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s territorial integrity, among other things. In the aftermath of these modifications, the U.S. took the unusual step of abstaining on its own initiative. Russia voted no for a second time, along with seven other states, while European UN members – and allies such as Australia and Canada – supported the updated text. European officials retired for lunch, relieved that things had not gone even worse. But a tough afternoon lay ahead for them as the U.S. tabled a Security Council resolution along the lines of its original Assembly draft, including an emphasis on the need for peace with no caveats. (The U.S. had hoped to hold the vote earlier to pre-empt the Assembly, but China, the Council president for February, stalled.) Eventually, after last-minute closed consultations, the five European members of the Security Council abstained on the resolution, while the remaining members of the body – including China, Russia and the U.S. – voted it through. European alterations of the language that sought to make it more acceptable to Kyiv were vetoed by Russia, while two Russian amendments designed to place responsibility for the war on Ukraine did not muster enough votes to pass. In the end, this very brief text became the first Security Council resolution on Ukraine to pass since 2015.
Diplomats and UN observers are still trying to make sense of the diplomatic manoeuvring that led to this denouement. It is not yet clear who in the U.S. government chose to revamp the country’s position on Ukraine at the UN or when these people did so. It is plain that U.S. lobbying in the run-up to the votes was aggressive; in some cases, U.S. officials warned countries that they would endanger bilateral assistance from Washington if they voted the wrong way. A handful of UN members that are highly susceptible to U.S. pressure, such as Palau and the Marshall Islands, switched from sponsoring the Ukrainian-EU draft to voting against it on 24 February. Rumours swirled about various aspects of the process, including whether France and the UK had contemplated casting their vetoes in the Security Council (something neither has done since 1989). One conclusion all can agree on is that relations between the U.S. and European countries are in very public disarray. Much of the commentary after the vote has dwelt on the apparent volte-face in the U.S. stance on Russia and Ukraine, as well as Washington’s growing estrangement from Europe. The analyses often omit mention of what the debates and votes at the UN reveal about broader international attitudes toward the war. While the U.S. drive to undermine the Ukrainian-EU General Assembly text may have come as a shock, Washington’s initiative highlighted deepening divisions among UN members about possible peace terms for Ukraine. As Crisis Group has noted in a series of commentaries, there has long been a contrast between the European (and previous U.S.) stance that peace must be based on UN Charter principles – above all respect for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial rights – and a growing sense among countries of the so-called Global South that Kyiv should enter talks without preconditions. In March 2023, Crisis Group tracked non-Western countries’ statements at a General Assembly debate marking the first year of Russia’s all-out aggression, noting that “speakers representing non-Western member states were typically more inclined to call for an early, negotiated end to the war”. At the time, sympathy for Ukraine was still fairly high, and 141 of the UN’s 192 members backed a resolution outlining a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” broadly on Kyiv’s terms. But as Crisis Group warned at the time, this good-will was not guaranteed to last.
Since the 2023 debate, voices from non-Western countries calling for an early peace process without preconditions have grown louder at the UN and beyond.
Since the 2023 debate, voices from non-Western countries calling for an early peace process without preconditions have grown louder at the UN and beyond. The outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 has complicated Ukraine’s diplomatic standing, as many countries – not least from the Arab group of UN members – have complained about Western “double standards” in handling the two wars. In 2024, Brazil, China and South Africa all floated peace initiatives, although these tended to lack real substance. At the high-level General Assembly session in September 2024, Brazil and China convened a Friends for Peace group involving thirteen countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America that called on “all sides” in the Russian-Ukrainian war to search for peace through “inclusive diplomacy and political means”. This wording was a coded rebuke to Kyiv’s and its allies’ insistence on defining principles for peace before talks begin. While the Friends for Peace initiative pointed to growing Global South diplomatic activism over Ukraine and disaffection with the European standpoint, many non-Western officials at the UN have simply wanted to keep their distance from discussions of the war. As an African diplomat involved in drafting several national statements on Ukraine told Crisis Group in late 2024, it has been obvious that such interventions will not shape the course of the war. Many thus feel that their time is better spent on other urgent issues.
The main trend among representatives of the Global South was abstentionism, with majorities of both African and Asian states either abstaining or not voting at all on the text (a narrow majority of Latin American countries voted in favour). In 2023, a total of 32 countries from all regions abstained on the Ukrainian peace resolution. On 24 February, 65 did so. The response to the final version of the U.S. General Assembly text was broadly similar, with 73 abstaining. Notable powers like Brazil and India abstained on both texts. A significant majority of Arab states (spread across the African and Asian groups) abstained, possibly out of continuing frustration at UN inaction over Gaza, but also following lobbying by Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Riyadh summit. The overall level of support for both resolutions would have been far lower had the bulk of members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, not chosen to vote in favour of both resolutions, having first considered abstaining.
Underlining UN members’ preference not to become entangled in a tussle involving the U.S., Europe and Russia, very few non-Western countries registered to speak at the General Assembly debate on 24 February. Of the nearly 70 UN members whose representative did speak, only two (South Africa and Tunisia) were from Africa, while five were from Latin America and fourteen from Asia. Many tried to draw out a degree of equivalence between Russia’s responsibility for the war and Ukraine’s. Some challenged Ukraine’s allies, accusing them of prolonging the conflict. South Africa claimed Kyiv and its friends had sown “further divisiveness” by raising issues such as the need for accountability in their text (European diplomats complain that while non-Western states demand international justice for war crimes in Gaza, they typically depict it as an obstacle to peace in Ukraine). Speakers from the Global South also kept their statements broad, avoiding detailed peace proposals. Brazil’s representative spoke of the need for a “landing zone” for a peace agreement but said little about how to get there. Despite the drama of the U.S.-European rift, UN members as a whole appeared non-committal on the issue of Ukraine’s future. For members of the Security Council, on the other hand, the spotlight on them in the smaller body appeared to impinge on their voting. Algeria, China, Pakistan and Panama all abstained on both General Assembly votes but plumped in favour of the U.S. text in the Security Council. European diplomats had hoped that they could persuade the two Latin American members of the Council – Guyana and Panama – to join them in abstaining on the document. But both appear to have concluded that doing so would create unnecessary tensions with Washington at a time of considerable flux in U.S. policy toward their region.
What Now for UN Cooperation?
The voting done, UN member states are now trying to work out what the resolutions mean for Ukraine and Russia. None of the texts contain legally binding language (the Security Council’s merely “implores” the parties to move toward peace), but the U.S. will be able to argue that the Security Council resolution gives it multilateral blessing to pursue bilateral diplomacy with Moscow. Kyiv and its friends will continue to say the General Assembly’s strictures on the need to respect issues such as Ukraine’s territorial rights should guide any peace process. After this bruising experience in New York, officials in Kyiv and Brussels are unlikely to float more resolutions of their own on Ukraine soon. The focus of diplomacy over Ukraine has already moved away from New York anyway, with President Zelenskyy planning to travel to Washington soon. That said, diplomats at the UN now foresee another battle over Ukraine if Moscow and Washington strike a deal. In that scenario, Russia and perhaps the U.S. are likely to ask the Security Council for its endorsement (Moscow previously pushed the Council to approve the Minsk II deal on Ukraine in 2015). If Kyiv has doubts about the bargain – or European capitals worry that it is flawed – an even greater and more consequential row at the UN could ensue. Even if a peace deal remains out of reach, the 24 February events will haunt U.S.-European relations at the UN – and especially in the Security Council – for some time. Other issues, such as violence in the West Bank and the restoration of UN sanctions on Iran, loom on the UN agenda and are likely to divide members along different lines. The U.S. and European countries could well split in a growing number of cases – while seeing common ground in others. In recent years, Western members of the Security Council have often discussed the need to “firewall” their arguments with Russia about Ukraine so as to preserve cooperation with Moscow on other issues. Now, it seems, a similar approach may be needed with the U.S. That said, mutual suspicions incubated by the U.S. policy switch on Ukraine and the intentions behind it are likely to seep into European perceptions. In addition to backing Ukraine, European policymakers need to navigate a UN system in which the U.S. is a potential adversary, Russia has regained diplomatic momentum and the nations of the Global South are hedging their bets on how world dynamics will develop.