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The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis.
With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got underway on the sidelines of the Queen’s funeral.
Russia is currently in retreat on the battlefield and in the contest for global hearts and minds over Ukraine’s fate. The general assembly voted 101-7 with 19 abstentions to allow Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to deliver a prerecorded video address, granting him an exemption from the requirement that speakers should appear in person.
India, a longstanding Moscow ally which has tended to abstain in votes on Ukraine, voted in Zelenskiy’s favor. The vote was on the same day that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, publicly scolded Vladimir Putin, telling him “today’s time is not a time for war” when they made a joint appearance at a regional Asia summit in Uzbekistan. Putin said he was aware of Indian “concerns”, echoing what he had said the day before about China.
The weeklong session of United Nations general assembly meetings and leaders’ speeches begins as mass graves are being discovered after the Russian retreat from the Ukrainian town of Izium.
War crimes are likely to be central in speeches on Wednesday delivered by Zelenskiy and Joe Biden, and the UN security council will convene a ministerial meeting on Thursday morning, chaired by the French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, focused on accountability for war crimes in Ukraine.
