The UN General Assembly has condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine by a large majority and called on Russia to end its aggression.

A total of 141 UN member states voted in favour of a resolution to this effect in New York on Wednesday, while five voted against and 35 countries abstained.

It was only the 11th emergency meeting of its kind at the UN in more than 70 years and the first in decades.

The minimum vote for the resolution to pass was 100 of the 193-member body, as in a 2014 resolution that invalidated a Russian referendum in Crimea. Other diplomats set the bar for success at 120 votes.

Not all members vote in the assembly, and some of them do not have the right to vote at the moment because of outstanding payments.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, a resolution adopted in the assembly is not binding under international law and has more of a symbolic significance. Observers, however, see it as a snapshot of the global mood regarding the Ukraine conflict.

The resolution expressed “grave concern at reports of attacks on civilian facilities such as residences, schools and hospitals, and of civilian casualties, including women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and children.”

It “demanded that the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine and to refrain from any further unlawful threat or use of force against any [UN] member state.”

Russia made it clear that it would not change its course despite the vote: “This document will not allow us to stop military activities,” said Russia’s UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya. Rather, it could encourage “radical forces” and “nationalists” in Kiev, he claimed.

Moscow portrays the democratically elected government in Ukraine as illegitimate and extremist.

Ahead of the vote, Kiev had called on countries around the world to stand together. “We are living through a defining moment for our generation,” Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said on Wednesday at the end of a three-day emergency session before the UN‘s largest body.

Russia, he said, had not invaded just for its foreign policy goals. “They have come to the Ukrainian soil, not only to kill some of us … they have come to deprive Ukraine of the very right to exist.”

Source: dpa/MIA