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The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle \u2013 between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other \u2013 for global support over the fate of\u00a0Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on\u00a0New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got under way on the sidelines of the Queen\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n
Russia is currently in retreat on the battlefield and in the contest for global hearts and minds over Ukraine\u2019s fate. The general assembly voted 101-7 with 19 abstentions to allow the Ukrainian president,\u00a0Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to deliver a prerecorded video address, granting him an exemption from the requirement that speakers should appear in person.<\/p>\n
India, a longstanding Moscow ally which has tended to abstain in votes on Ukraine, voted in Zelenskiy\u2019s favour. The vote was on the same day that India\u2019s prime minister, Narendra Modi,\u00a0publicly scolded Vladimir Putin, telling him \u201ctoday\u2019s time is not a time for war\u201d when they made a joint appearance at a regional Asia summit in Uzbekistan. Putin said he was aware of Indian \u201cconcerns\u201d, echoing what he had said the day before\u00a0about China.<\/p>\n
The weeklong session of United Nations general assembly meetings and leaders\u2019 speeches begins as mass graves are being discovered after the Russian retreat from the\u00a0Ukrainian town of Izium.<\/p>\n
War crimes are likely to be central in speeches on Wednesday delivered by Zelenskiy and\u00a0Joe Biden, and the UN security council will convene a ministerial meeting on Thursday morning, chaired by the French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, focused on accountability for war crimes in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The Russians \u201cshould expect that it will not be business as usual when they arrive in New York tomorrow\u201d, the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will be isolated. They will be condemned in the security council, as well as more broadly in the general assembly.<\/p>\n
There will be no traditional lunch with ministers from the permanent five members of the security council this year. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is only due to speak on Saturday when most other ministers will have left, so if there is a walkout when Lavrov approaches the lectern, it will have less impact.<\/p>\n
Despite broad sympathy at the\u00a0United Nations\u00a0general assembly for Ukraine\u2019s plight in the face of the Russian invasion, there has been irritation among developing countries that the focus on the conflict has crowded out discussion and action on parallel food and climate crises that threaten mass displacement and starvation in the global south.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has pressed for more resolutions condemning Russia in the security council and general assembly, but Kyiv\u2019s western backers have warned of the risk that the diminishing numbers supporting such resolutions might become the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been an ebb and flow of interest and engagement from countries not directly affected by Ukraine and so we\u2019ve had to work hard to make it clear that we\u2019re talking about those issues that do affect them in their own right,\u201d a European diplomat at the UN said.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will chair a summit on food security, and US officials have also signalled that Washington is ready to talk about the reform of UN institutions, including the security council.<\/p>\n
Western member states will seek to use the food security summit to point out the linkages between the Russian invasion and global food shortages.<\/p>\n
\u201cLinking the two where appropriate is useful because it stops Ukraine being seen as a European problem that doesn\u2019t really matter,\u201d the European diplomat said.<\/p>\n
Russia and the west have been locked in a propaganda battle across\u00a0Africa\u00a0over responsibility for the grain shortages caused by the interruption of exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.<\/p>\n
Lavrov has been touring Africa, portraying Russia as a victim of a western imperialist war while highlighting Russia\u2019s role in backing decolonization movements.<\/p>\n
In a parallel move to bolster its support at the general assembly, the US has abandoned its noncommittal position on the reform of UN institutions like the security council to make them more representative.<\/p>\n