UN Security Council meeting to address Russia, Ukraine crisis

The United States has called for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to address Russia’s behavior and the build-up of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border.

A senior administration official on Friday told reporters the U.S. wants to get U.N. members on the record. 

“It basically boils down to the question of whether there should be a path of war, or whether there should be a path of diplomacy,” the official told reporters in a briefing. “I think the expectation is that members of the Security Council will be weighing in on this question and supportive of a diplomatic approach.” 

The administration official said that no concrete measures or a joint statement are expected to come out of the council meeting. Russia, as one of five permanent members of the council, holds power to veto such measures. The other permanent members are the U.S., France, the United Kingdom and China. 

There are 10 nonpermanent members of the council that are elected to two-year terms and procedure dictates that nine members must vote in the affirmative for an agenda item to proceed.

The senior administration official said the U.S. mission to the U.N. is “confident” it will have the votes required to allow the meeting on Monday to take place if a roll call vote is requested, which Russia reportedly has suggested it would demand. 

“We do believe that there is more than sufficient support,” the official said. 

The session will provide an opportunity for “preventive diplomacy,” the official said and to allow “all of the world’s powers to be on the record about whether they see a path forward for diplomacy or whether they would prefer to see a path towards conflict.” 

The official added that the U.S. delegation expects China, which has moved closer to Russia in general amid fraught tensions with the U.S., to express concerns about respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Chinese often slam international criticism of its policies related to Taiwan, Hong Kong and against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang as foreign interference in domestic Chinese affairs.  

“We’ve been in active diplomatic conversation with the Chinese mission in New York about this meeting and the issue, as it comes to the Security Council as well,” the official said. 

“China often speaks out very forcefully about territorial integrity and respect for sovereignty. I think those are fundamental principles on which we have a very shared basis in view about the importance of the U.N. Charter and the role of the Security Council.”

The Biden administration has argued for weeks that Russia bears responsibility as escalating aggression against Ukraine, saying its massing of more than 100,000 troops on its neighbors’ border is part of a larger plan to further invade the former Soviet state, following Moscow’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. 

Russia denies that it has plans to invade Ukraine and justified its military buildup as defensive posturing against Kyiv’s closer ties to the West and aspirations to join NATO, saying these actions pose a threat to Russian national security. 

The U.S. has rejected Russian demands to cease NATO expansion and guarantee Ukraine’s exclusion, but has emphasized Washington is open to diplomacy to address Russian security concerns on a “reciprocal” basis.