Pakistan abstains from UN vote on Russia

With Pakistan abstaining, the United Nations General Assembly Thursday voted to demand that Russia “urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel” from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and return it to the full control of Ukrainian authorities.

The 193-member Assembly adopted a resolution with 99 votes in favour, nine against and 60 abstentions. The nine countries voting against are Russia, Belarus, Burundi, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua and Syria.

Pakistan has maintained a neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine war. At the same time, Islamabad has repeatedly called for respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and sent humanitarian aid to the war-torn country. But it has refused to condemn Moscow’s action.

In this regard, Pakistan has thrice abstained from voting on a resolution at the UN General Assembly denouncing the “Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Thursday’s UNGA resolution also called for an immediate end to attacks against Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, following weeks of escalation.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, the largest in Europe, was captured by Russia shortly after it launched a full-scale attack against Ukraine in February 2022. It is shut down but needs external power to keep its nuclear material cool and prevent a meltdown.

Speaking before the vote, Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya urged countries to vote in favour of the resolution, saying: “We owe this to future generations. We must ensure that the horrors of nuclear disasters are not repeated.”

Deputy Russian U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the General Assembly before the vote that the aim of the resolution was “to try to promote the false Western narrative about the source of threats to nuclear facilities in Ukraine.”