Ukraine calls for Russia’s removal from UN

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine on Monday called for Russia to be removed from the United Nations, where Moscow can veto any resolution as a permanent member of the Security Council.

“Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN... to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement said that Russia “illegally occupies the seat of the USSR in the UN Security Council” since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“From a legal and political point of view, there can be only one conclusion: Russia is an usurper of the Soviet Union´s seat in the UN Security Council,” the ministry added. “Three decades of its illegal presence in the UN have been marked by wars and seizures of other countries´ territories,” the statement said.

The five permanent members of the 15-seat UN Security Council have veto power over UN resolutions.

Meanwhile, Moscow said on Monday it had foiled a new Ukrainian drone attack on a strategic bomber military base hundreds of kilometres from their joint border, as Kyiv called for Russia´s ouster from the United Nations.

Russia said it had downed the drone at Engels, a base for the country´s strategic aircraft that Kyiv says have been used to strike Ukraine. Three servicemen were killed by falling debris, regional authorities said.