Zim abstains from UN vote on Russia

By Miriam Mangwaya | Oct. 14, 2022 | 2 Min read

ZIMBABWE is one of the 35 countries that abstained from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote which called on countries not to recognise the four Ukraine regions annexed by Russia.

In the Wednesday vote, 143 UN member States voted in favour of the resolution, while five countries voted against it.

The countries which voted against the resolution were Belarus, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria.

The majority of the countries that abstained were African countries and also China and India.

The resolution followed demands that Moscow reverse course on its “attempted illegal annexation”.

Efforts to get a comment from the Foreign Affairs ministry on why Zimbabwe abstained from the vote were in vain as the ministry spokesperson Livit Mugejo was not picking calls.

Mugejo had not responded to questions sent to him by the time of going to print.

South Africa, which is one of the countries that also abstained, said the resolution failed to abide by the UN mandate to contribute to a constructive outcome conducive to the creation of sustainable peace in Ukraine.

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“We abstained on the resolution because we believe that the objective of this assembly in keeping with its mandate must always be to contribute to a constructive outcome conducive to the creation of sustainable peace in Ukraine. Unfortunately, some elements of the resolution do not address this. In the context of the heightened tensions in recent days, all efforts should be geared towards a ceasefire and a political solution,” Pretoria said.

Zimbabwe has on several occasions abstained from the UNGA vote on the Russian-Ukraine war.

Voters in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia overwhelmingly backed their provinces joining Russia, according to referendums rejected by the government in Kyiv and its Western allies as meaningless and illegal.