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File photo - Matt Dunham/AP/Press Association Images

Russia isolated as China abstains from UN vote on Crimea

Moscow has vetoed a resolution criticising tomorrow’s succession referendum in Crimea. China, which often backs Russia, abstained from the UN vote.

RUSSIA VETOED A Western-backed resolution condemning the Crimea referendum at a UN Security Council emergency vote today but China abstained, isolating Moscow further on the Ukraine crisis.

The draft resolution, which says tomorrow’s referendum would have no validity, got 13 votes in the 15-member council. But it was rejected when permanent member Russia exercised its veto.

The resolution had declared that the referendum on the autonomous region coming under Kremlin rule “cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of Crimea.”

China often backs Russia at the council, especially on Syria-related votes, and Western powers presented its abstention as the best possible outcome from today’s vote.

“Russia totally isolated at UNSC. 13 vote for Resolution. Even China abstains,” US deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, tweeted after what was the seventh UN emergency session since the crisis began.

“Russia, isolated, alone and wrong, blocked the resolution’s passage,” US ambassador Samantha Power told the council.

“This is a sad and remarkable moment,” she said.

Invasion

Ukraine accused Russian forces of invading a southeast region of the country that neighbors Crimea. Thanking the UN for its efforts, Kiev warned the world the crisis had suddenly got worse.

“This is something which changes the situation dramatically,” Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Yuriy Sergeyev, told reporters.

The United States was looking into the reports but would see any new Russian troop movement in south Ukraine as an “outrageous escalation” of the crisis over Crimea, Power warned.

“For something additional, even more escalatory to have occurred would be flying in the face of everything you have heard here today,” she told reporters.

The Security Council session, which lasted more than an hour, degenerated into the usual recriminations between Western powers and Ukraine stacked up in one corner, and Russia in the other.

‘It’s a sad day’

France, like Ukraine, harkened back to the days of the Cold War.

French ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters that the impending annexation of Crimea was “totally unacceptable.”

“It’s a sad day, really, because we have the impression to go back 30 or 40 years,” he added.

British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant demanded Russia work to find a peaceful solution and “take notice of its isolation.”

“If Russia fails to respond to Ukraine’s outstretched hand, it will lead to further escalation of tension in the region and further consequences for Russia,” he said.

The United States had drafted the resolution in very measured terms so that it could be accepted by Beijing.

China

Chinese ambassador Liu Jieyi justified Beijing’s abstention by saying that passing a resolution at this moment would “only result in confrontation and further complicate the situation.”

“China has always been fair and objective. We will continue to mediate and promote dialogue so as to play a constructive role in seeking a political solution to the crisis,” he said.

Beijing has long defended the need to respect territorial integrity and does not back interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

When the Security Council ruled on a similar international crisis, between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Beijing abstained.

‘PR’

Russia’s veto had been certain after last-ditch talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov broke down in London yesterday.

“It is a secret to no one that the Russian Federation will vote against the resolution,” Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council before the vote.

He defended this weekend’s referendum as necessary to fill the “legal vacuum” that arose “as a result of an unconstitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine.”

He later singled out Ukraine for “going beyond” permissible rhetoric, France for failing to mention killings in Russian-speaking Ukraine and the United States for its “PR”.

“Madam Power spoke of truth. Was Washington telling its truth about its role in the development of the crisis?” he thundered.

“Why are you negating the right of the people in Crimea to express their will in the referendum tomorrow?”

- © AFP, 2014

Read: Two Ukrainians killed on eve of Crimea breakaway vote

Read: ‘No common vision’: Last-ditch US-Russia talks on Crimea end in failure

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    Mute Jams O' Donnell
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    May 12th 2019, 5:09 PM

    I always thought with communism when the shop’s were empty, nothing but Soviet B.S. on the state run telly, There was nothing to do but screw.! ( At least it was free).!

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    Mute Del Teeling
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    May 12th 2019, 5:14 PM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: How crass

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    Mute Gav Brosnan
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    May 12th 2019, 5:38 PM

    @Del Teeling: back to Russia with you.

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    Mute Tony Donoghue
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    May 12th 2019, 6:07 PM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: nothing but babe station u say, there’s a lot to be said for communism perhaps

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    Mute Red Pirate 71
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    May 13th 2019, 1:39 AM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: wage equality, abortion. Divorce. Free access to education. Free housing. Free healthcare. Free holidays. Sounds space age? No. That’s the Soviet Union. Certainly not modern Ireland.

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    Mute Pamela K Sztyblewski
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:49 AM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: Well that would account for a higher birth rate than they have. Then again, no place has a birth rate like the Irish. (My father had 15 brothers and sisters….)

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    Mute Pamela K Sztyblewski
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:54 AM

    @Red Pirate 71: Irish people get that stuff in England.

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    Mute Tony Donoghue
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    May 12th 2019, 6:04 PM

    Russian ladies, the sweetest taboo

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    May 12th 2019, 6:27 PM

    Take that story with a grain of siberian salt.
    A Russian colleague once summed up her country’s attitude to sex as follows: ‘in Russia we have no God, no hell or heaven and no concept of sin. If we have an itch, we scratch it.’

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    May 12th 2019, 9:56 PM

    There again, anyone who hoped to escape probably wouldn’t want to risk leaving hostages behind. I’m fairly sure that no one was allowed to travel abroad in the past, unless their husband, wife or children stayed behind.

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    Mute Red Pirate 71
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    May 13th 2019, 1:40 AM

    @Fiona Fitzgerald: totally incorrect. Along with most American generated propaganda about Russia.

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    Mute Maggie O'Connor
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    May 12th 2019, 7:22 PM

    I don’t think its too far removed from the old Irish Catholic view about sex.. it was deemed inappropriate and shameful even to talk about it. Thankfully that has changed but, i still won’t covet my neighbour’s wife.

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    Mute Shawn O'Ceallaghan
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    May 12th 2019, 7:32 PM

    @Maggie O’Connor: unless for

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    Mute rusty
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    May 12th 2019, 9:29 PM

    @Maggie O’Connor: why not ?

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    Mute Jumperoo
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    May 12th 2019, 11:05 PM

    @rusty: I don’t covet my neighbour’s wife either. She’s puck ugly, and painful to listen to.

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    Mute Aine O Connor
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    May 13th 2019, 8:04 AM

    @Jumperoo: who says she would be bothered with you either.

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    Mute Aine O Connor
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    May 13th 2019, 8:11 AM

    @Maggie O’Connor:
    The Irish did not talk much about sex but had plenty of it judging by the numbers of unmarried Mothers, Shotgun marraiges and very large families. Follow the evidence.Sex is like most activities, the more you practice the more you learn and the more you learn the better it gets.

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    Mute Joey Roche
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    May 12th 2019, 5:48 PM

    Russian man found with three testicles, Whodyanickthebollockoff.

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    Mute Me_a_monkey
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    May 13th 2019, 7:13 PM

    @Joey Roche: in soviet Russia, sex has you….

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    Mute Jonny
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    May 12th 2019, 6:40 PM

    We like beans, we like sauce, we like sexual intercourse

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    Mute anthony o cathain
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    May 13th 2019, 12:07 AM

    @Jonny: haha hahaha hahaha. Spastic

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    Mute anthony o cathain
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    May 13th 2019, 12:08 AM

    A scary society

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    Mute The decline of Manchester United
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    May 13th 2019, 6:20 AM

    Horrible small minded Government, even today Putin would have a new Soviet Empire all the way across Europe but he knows the Americans would wipe them off the map if he tried

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    Mute Pamela K Sztyblewski
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:55 AM

    @The decline of Manchester United: How, Russians aren’t allowed outside Russia without Visas even in Europe, while Americans are allowed everywhere visa-free “for 90 days”

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    Mute Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
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    May 14th 2019, 2:20 PM

    Might be true for older people (40+), but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case with the young. I know a few Russians and I’d say they are pretty open about the subject. Homossexuality though I think it is still a taboo like it was in my country (Brazil) 20 – 15 years ago

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