Russia’s pullout from Ukraine nuclear plant: Pakistan remains abstain from UNGA vote

NEW YORK: With Pakistan abstaining, the United Nations General Assembly 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 favor, 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.”

The 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 favor 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.” He held up in the General Assembly the wreckage of what he called a Ukrainian drone that had been used to attack the Zaporizhzhia power plant on April 7. Ukraine has denied it was behind the drone attacks that Polyanskiy referenced.

The UNGA resolution “calls for immediate cessation of the attacks by the Russian Federation against critical energy infrastructure of Ukraine, which increase the risk of a nuclear accident or incident at all nuclear facilities of Ukraine.”

The resolution adopted on Thursday again demands that Russia “immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces.”

The General Assembly has been the focus for U.N. action on Ukraine because the 15-member Security Council has been paralyzed by Russia, which holds a veto power along with the United States, China, France and Britain.