the abyss; first year of the war in Ukraine

Today or tomorrow, Friday, the United Nations General Assembly will vote on a resolution on the war in Ukraine.

We know that the resolution will not go through the Security Council because Russia would veto it. The mechanism is collapsed.

However, we will know the decisions that all the countries of the world make about the war. We will know the names of the countries that support the war and also those that are against it. We will find out about the nations that are abstaining. In effect, the binding profile of the resolution voted by the Security Council would be diluted as a result of the veto and the decision that comes out of the General Assembly will simply have an informative content on the position that the countries have regarding the conflict.

But the exercise is valuable.

Tomorrow will mark the first year of the war in Ukraine and the feeling is that we are closer to the abyss than to a peace agreement.

“It is time to get away from this abyss,” he commented yesterday to the UN Secretary General during the General Assembly session.

The new resolution “underlines the need to achieve comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter as soon as possible.

Like the two previous resolutions, the text reaffirms the “attachment” to “the territorial integrity of Ukraine”, “demands” the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces and calls for a “cessation of hostilities”.

In the last resolution, voted in October, 143 countries voted in favor, that is, they condemned the annexations of various Ukrainian territories by Russia.

It is in moments of greatest tension that a greater dose of diplomacy is required. International law is not only a set of laws, it actually becomes the most precious insurance of international architecture.

This week we have seen a more belligerent Russian president. First, because he has decided to withdraw from the only nuclear agreement that he has signed with the United States. Second: in his speech on Tuesday he appealed to history by saying that Ukraine belongs to them.

These two messages draw the worst possible scenario.

UN Secretary General António Guterres reacted yesterday by saying: “The possible consequences of the escalation of the conflict are a clear danger and are already there.”

From Guterres’s speech, I would rescue two phrases in particular: “collective conscience”.

“This invasion is an affront to our collective conscience,” he said. And who protects the collective conscience is international law.

It is time to move away from the abyss.