On Monday, December 9, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging Russia to withdraw its troops from the occupied Crimea and end the temporary occupation of Ukraine. 63 countries voted for the relevant decision, 19 voted against it. This was reported via Facebook page of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN.
The key provisions of the resolution are:
– the requirement for the Russian Federation as an invading state to withdraw its troops from the Crimea and stop the temporary occupation of the territory of Ukraine;
– an appeal to the Russian Federation to return military equipment and weapons seized from the three ships of the Ukrainian Navy, namely Berdians’k, Nikopol’ and Yañı Qapı;
– a positive assessment of the liberation by the Russian Federation of 24 Ukrainian sailors and an emphasis on the need to continue negotiations with a view to returning to Ukraine all illegally detained citizens of Ukraine;
– condemnation of the Russian Federation military exercises in Crimea and the use of captured military enterprises;
– emphasis on the misuse of nuclear infrastructure on the Ukrainian peninsula;
– fixing the fact that the strengthening of the Russian military presence and the obstruction of international navigation in the Black and Azov Seas negatively affects the socio-economic situation in the coastal regions of Ukraine;
– recommendation to foreign states, international organizations and institutions to refrain from visits to the temporarily occupied Crimea without coordination with Ukraine.
According to Oleh Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian delegation to the UN, a document entitled “The problem of militarization of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as parts of the Black and Azov Seas” was jointly developed by 42 states, in particular, Ukraine, EU states, the USA, Canada , Turkey.