NEW YORK – The United States on Monday opposed a United Nations resolution led by European countries urging territorial integrity for Ukraine on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, highlighting looming gaps among key supporters of Kyiv over the future of the war.
The motion was adopted by the world body’s General Assembly, while Washington submitted a separate resolution calling for an end to the conflict without using words such as Russia’s “invasion.”
The moves showed a shift in US policies on the war under President Donald Trump, who returned to power last month for a nonconsecutive second term, in comparison with his predecessor Joe Biden, who was in step with Europe in efforts to help Ukraine.
The resolution proposed by scores of countries including Britain, France and Germany as well as Japan and Ukraine was backed by 93 members in Monday’s session. Eighteen members such as the United States and Russia voted against it.
It mentions “the urgent need to end the war this year” and the assembly’s “commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”
Meanwhile, the separate resolution presented by the United States referred to the war as “the Russian Federation-Ukraine conflict” and urged that it be brought to “a swift end.”
But the assembly decided to change the language to the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.”
Dorothy Shea, acting head of the US mission to the United Nations, told a plenary session that the revised version of the US-drafted resolution “will no longer be able to achieve the consensus of this body on the most solemn pursuit, the pursuit of peace.”
Washington abstained from a vote on the revised version.
The Trump administration has deepened worries among European countries about their cooperation in ending the war by holding talks with Russia about a possible cease-fire without Ukraine’s involvement and describing the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections.”
Last week, Trump even made the false claim that Ukraine waged the three-year-old war, saying “You should have never started it” as if addressing Kyiv in comments to reporters.