Should Russia’s aggressive war on Ukraine, with its accompanying litany of horrific human rights abuses, disqualify it from a seat on the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC)? That’s what Poland’s feisty foreign minister Radek Sikorsky called for yesterday in New York. The UNSC was meant to be a ‘guardian of peace, not to give immunity to aggressors’ like Russia, Sikorski told Polish television. More, he called the legal basis for Russia’s permanent seat at the Security Council table – with its accompanying veto over all resolutions – ‘questionable’ because Moscow took over the USSR’s old seat without a vote. 

In moral terms, Sikorski has a point – and it’s one that the Ukrainians have been pushing for a while. On 5 April 2022 Volodymyr Zelensky recorded a heartfelt personal address to the UNSC immediately after visiting the ruins of Bucha. Showing footage of murdered civilians, Zelensky accused Russia of turning its UN veto ‘into a right to cause death’. Zelensky challenged the Security Council with an ultimatum: remove Russia so it can’t block decisions on its own aggression, or dissolve itself altogether if it can’t hold Moscow accountable.

The UN is today governed by brutal realpolitik

The UN is today governed by brutal realpolitik

Unfortunately for Zelensky and the world, the United Nations has long ceased to be a forum for international peace – if it ever was – and is today governed by brutal realpolitik. When the UN General Assembly voted just days........

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