Malta has reiterated calls for Russia to be made to pay reparations to Ukraine for its illegal invasion of that country, warning UN member states of the dangers of not enforcing respect for international law.

“A fundamental principle in Article 2 of the UN Charter is the rejection of an international system where might is right,” Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg told an emergency session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“All United Nations Member states today must stop, think and ponder on the gravity of the current situation and what might be the result if they don’t speak out and reaffirm by their vote the importance of safeguarding a rules-based international order and the principles of the Charter.”

Article 2 of the UN Charter states that all UN member states will refrain from the use of force, or its threat, against other countries.

UN member states met on Wednesday for a two-day emergency session to debate a resolution that calls for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and ensure a “lasting peace” in the country and its territories.

The resolution was presented by Ukraine and endorsed by a group of 57 countries including the US, UK and all EU member states 

Malta highlights humanitarian atrocities

Borg, who on Friday will chair a United Nations Security Council debate about the war in Ukraine, told the General Assembly that “Russia’s disregard for international law must be condemned and denounced without reservation.

He highlighted reports of atrocities committed against civilians, including women and children, as well as indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, saying the international community was “continuously horrified” by them.

The minister also went one step further, underlining Malta’s continued support for a November 2022 resolution that called for “the furtherance of remedy and reparation for aggression against Ukraine.”

That resolution proposed setting up a register of damages caused by the war and creating an international reparations mechanism that would be used to calculate what Russia must pay Ukraine in the form of damages for its war of aggression.

Russia’s war in Ukraine remains in full flow, however, and discussing reparations is premature while Russian boots continue to march on Ukrainian territory.

Borg acknowledged as much, telling UN member states that the only way forward at this stage was for Russia to halt its aggression and exit Ukraine.

“There is no other way,” he said.

UN member states will vote on the resolution presented to the emergency session on Thursday.

The vote comes days after Vladimir Putin said Russia would be suspending its participation in the START treaty –  the last major nuclear control treaty that is still in force. 

Putin has also been courting China in recent days, hailing "new frontiers" in ties between the two countries and saying Chinese President Xi Jinping will be visiting Moscow soon. 

A question of gaps

It is a foregone conclusion that the general assembly resolution to be voted on Thursday will be adopted – unlike the UN Security Council, there is no veto power within the General Assembly, and Russia’s allies are in a distinct minority on the world stage.

What remains to be seen is the margin by which the resolution is passed.

Initial resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion obtained overwhelming majorities, with 140, 141 and 143 voted in favour to five against, with a few dozen abstentions.

Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba addresses the UN emergency session on Wednesday. Photo: UN

But later resolutions that sought to demand reparations from Russia or kick it out of the UN Human Rights Council got significantly less support, with 93 and 94 endorsements.

As an EU member state, Malta is among the countries endorsing the resolution.

A modified final text

Initial indications were that the resolution would call for UN member states to endorse a 10-point peace plan presented by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr  Zelensky.

Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, Dmytro Kuleba, recalled that peace plan when he opened the General Assembly debate, describing it as a “realistic” plan to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine.

But the resolution presented to the GA, A/ES-11/L.7, makes no mention of that plan, and instead lays out broader, less specific demands.

It demands that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally” withdraw its military from Ukraine and calls for “fair and independent” investigations into crimes committed in Ukraine, with “prosecutions at the national and international level”.

Also conspicuous by its absence is mention of calls to set up a special tribunal to prosecute Russian leadership for aggression against Ukraine – a call reiterated by Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba and the country’s first lady Olena Zelenska at a separate UN meeting held earlier on Wednesday.

Delegates at the UN General Assembly for Wednesday's emergency session. Photo: AFP

Russia was quick to highlight the watered-down nature of the resolution, with its representative Vasily Nebenzya describing it as an “emptied out” one crafted by Russia’s enemies with the sole intent of drumming up as many votes as possible in its favour.

Two perspectives

It did not take long for the battle lines to be drawn during Wednesday’s debate. On the one hand, Russia framed the resolution as a pretext to fan the flames of what its representative described repeatedly as “Russophobia” in the west.

Having misled the international community about Russia’s intentions, the west now sought to arm Ukraine and give it the tools it needed to “destroy and dismember” Russia, its representative argued.

Russia’s ally Belarus was also critical of the resolution and sought to amend it to remove a reference to Russia’s “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine.

But the vast majority of nations presented the issue as one of a country having violated international law by invading its neighbour, without justification.

EU High Representative Josep Borell spelt that position out.

“This is not about the West vs Russia. This illegal war concerns everyone – north, south, east, west,” he argued. “We are here to reiterate the importance of upholding territorial integrity and respect for the UN Charter.”

The US added pressure on UN member states to adopt the resolution, with its ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield telling delegates that history would judge them by the result of Thursday’s vote.

“All Russia has done is deny, deny, deny,” she said, recalling Russia’s statement to the UN on the eve of its invasion that “occupation of Ukraine is not in our plan.”

Opening the debate, Ukraine’s Kuleba urged UN member states to take a stand.

“Nobody should be fooled by Russia’s calls for negotiations – events on the front line show they want war, not peace,” he said, highlighting continued strikes on civilian infrastructure, using missiles as well as “drones made in Iran”.

Children were being kidnapped and adopted into Russian families to “reeducate them, as Russians”.

“This is genocide,” Kuleba said.

“Never before has the line between good and evil been clearer,” he told the assembly. “One country merely wants to live in peace. The other wants to kill and destroy.”

Bertrand Borg reported from New York. The trip was sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.