Russia vetoes UN resolution on Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS — Russia vetoed a Westernbacked resolution condemning the Crimea referendum at a UN Security Council emergency vote Saturday, but China abstained, isolating Moscow further on the Ukraine crisis.
The draft resolution, which says Sunday's referendum would have no validity, got 13 votes in the 15member council. But it was rejected when permanent member Russia exercised its veto.
The resolution declares that the referendum on whether the semi-autonomous region should come 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 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."
US national security advisers assembled at the White House to discuss Ukraine. President Barack Obama was not there but was being briefed, a senior US official said.
"Russia totally isolated at UNSC. 13 vote for Resolution. Even China abstains. Russia alone in refusing to affirm sovereignty of #Ukraine," US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes tweeted.
It came as Ukraine accused Russian forces of invading a southeastern region of the country that neighbors Crimea.
Thanking the UN for its efforts, Kiev warned the world the situation on the ground had suddenly got worse.
" This is something which changes the situation dramatically," Ukraine's 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," 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 said.
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.
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 on Friday.
"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 Crimea'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 alleged killings in Russian-speaking Ukraine and the United States for its "PR."