Ukrainian Foreign Ministry calls for Russia to be excluded from UN and UN Security Council
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that Russian joined the United Nations (UN) illegally, occupying the place held by the USSR on the UN Security Council.
The Ministry notes that, according to Article 4 of the UN Charter, membership in the organization is open to all “peace-loving states.” The UN General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council, makes decisions about UN membership.
“For example, the newly formed UN member states of Czechia and Slovakia followed this legitimate path after the UN member state called Czechoslovakia cease to exist,” said the Foreign Ministry.
However, Russia became a UN member in 1991 on the basis of a letter that Boris Yeltsin, who at that time was still President of the RSFSR, sent to the UN General Secretary.
In the UN Charter, there is still no mention of Russia among Security Council members — it lists the USSR as part of its composition, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry emphasized.
The Russian Federation never went through a legitimate procedure for gaining [UN] membership and illegally occupies the USSR’s place on the Security Council. From a legal and a political point of view there can be only one conclusion: Russia is a usurper of the USSR’s place on the UN Security Council.
The Russian Federation’s right to be a UN member is also in doubt, since it does not meet the main criteria for membership in the organization. […] The actions of the Russian Federation are contrary to the concept of “peace-loving.”
Ukraine called on UN member states to remove Russia’s status as a permanent member of the Security Council, and to exclude it from the organization as a whole.
The question of the possibility of expelling Russian from among the Security Council’s permanent members, which have the right to veto Council decisions, arose after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among others, requested that Russia be excluded from the Security Council. Charles Michel, president of the European Council, called for working out a mechanism to suspend Russia’s membership on the Council.
The White House has stated that no such mechanism exists. Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson, also commented on the idea, saying “We won’t implement this scenario, if we’re talking about doing it legitimately.”
The UN Charter does not provide a procedure for suspending or expelling a member of the Security Council. It is impossible to remove a country’s permanent membership on the Security Council without changing the Charter.