By Jimmy Quinn
Thursday, April 28, 2022
Ukraine’s envoy to the U.N. says he knows that his
repeated calls to expel Russia from the Security Council — the body’s
only organ capable of issuing binding decisions — are falling on deaf ears in
Western capitals. But there’s a reason for the push: It’s part of a drive to
ensure the future “de-Putinization” of Russia.
Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.N.,
discussed these goals and other priorities during an hour-long interview
with National Review earlier this week. He argued that
continued support for the invasion among the Russian population
indicates a clear but arduous path forward.
“We should remember what happened to Nazi Germany after
the defeat of Hitler — how Germany underwent a long but reasonably successful
process of de-Nazification. And I think that Russia has to undergo the process of
de-Putinization,” he said.
After previous Russian acts of aggression — against
Transnistria, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere — the world stood by, he
argued. The international community “would put always a fresh layer of paint
over that mold and continue business as usual,” he said, adding that the latest
military threat raises an existential question. “What are we all going to do
with this incredibly large territory that is called the Russian Federation,
where democracy and rule of law was totally removed?”
He’s pessimistic that even a new government, with new
purportedly democratic leaders, would, absent international intervention,
reverse Russia’s tendency toward aggression against its neighbors.
Kyslytsya is an increasingly prominent voice at Turtle Bay
in meetings on the Russian invasion, where he has called for Russia’s expulsion
from the U.N. Security Council.
These episodes at the typically snoozy United Nations
have generated some noteworthy moments. Addressing the Security Council after
the discovery of Russia’s mass execution of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of
Bucha this month, Volodymyr Zelensky questioned the very purpose of a body that
cannot fulfill its mission because of Russia’s veto power.
Kyslytsya himself has made repeated comparisons of the
Russian military campaign to some of the darkest moments in modern world
history, such as Nazism and the Rwandan genocide. But as evidence of atrocities
in Ukraine mounts — including mass killings, rapes, torture, and
forced deportations — the U.N. has remained paralyzed.
In recent weeks, Russia has been removed from a handful
of U.N. bodies, most prominently the Human Rights Council, along with a number
of other lower-profile ones, such as the World Tourism Organization. Security
Council expulsion would be the real prize but is likely unattainable.
Kyslytsya acknowledged that Russia’s expulsion will not
come to pass for the time being, citing the lack of interest among Western
countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and France. “But it doesn’t mean we
may meet in a month or a couple of months from now and their positions may
[not] be modified.”
Where this may become particularly important, he said, is
when a new Russian government one day comes to power, perhaps claiming a break
with Putin’s legacy. Pointing to the 1990s and Putin’s rise to power, he said
the world cannot just go back to business as usual and pretend as though
nothing has happened, accepting promises from a purportedly democratic regime.
“That is why this highway that we tried to build of
accountability is very important, so that it is so deep, deeply ingrained
already in the texture of the international business, international relations,
international policy towards Russia that it would be impossible to ignore it,”
Kyslytsya explained, adding that this is why it’s important for these bodies to
gather and preserve evidence in anticipation of a future international
tribunal.
Ideally, such an entity would be legitimized by the U.N.,
he said, to grant it international credibility. Russia, of course, could veto
the establishment of such a tribunal. Kyslytsya said that that should be a test
for any new Russian government, adding that this is a hypothetical concern at
the moment and the focus should be on collecting evidence of atrocities and
seizing assets of Kremlin affiliates abroad.
In the meantime, even resolutions enacted by the General
Assembly — which are nonbinding — play a role in post-war efforts to seek
accountability for Russian war crimes. Kyslytsya cited two specific resolutions
passed last month labeling the Russian invasion an act of aggression and
calling on Moscow to abide by international humanitarian law as pivotal pieces
of evidence in a future war-crimes trial.
The U.N.’s resolutions, he said, are creating an
internationally endorsed paper trail that will make it all but impossible for
the architects and enablers of Russian military operations and atrocities to
one day claim they had no knowledge of these acts.
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