India abstains in UN vote over Russia’s proclaimed annexations in Ukraine

India Friday abstained on a draft resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Russia’s “illegal referenda” and annexation of four Ukrainian territories. The resolution failed to get adopted as Russia vetoed it. Of the 15-nation Council, 10 nations voted for the resolution while India, China, Gabon, and Brazil abstained.

The 15-nation UNSC had voted on the draft resolution tabled by the US and Albania. The resolution condemned Russia’s “organisation of illegal so-called referenda in regions within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.”

India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj.

India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj.While abstaining on the draft resolution, India called for an immediate cessation of violence in Ukraine and emphasised the need to find pathways for a return to the negotiating table, news agency PTI reported.

The resolution also declared that Russia’s “unlawful actions” with regards to the “illegal so-called referenda” taken between September 23 and 27 this year in parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya that are under Russia’s temporary control can have “no validity” and cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of these regions of Ukraine, including any “purported annexation” of any of these regions by Moscow.

Stating that India was deeply disturbed by the recent turn of developments in Ukraine, India’s permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj said that New Delhi has always advocated that no solution can ever arrive at the cost of human lives.