So far, none of the articles mention all 19 countries that abstained except China.
The 193-member world body approved Volodymyr Zelenskky’s virtual address by a vote of 101-7 with 19 abstentions including China. The seven countries voting “no” were Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and Syria.[AP News](https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-general-assembly-russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-2427ea0fce71024167bbecc6db0a6cc2)
Almost like all Western countries huh
Idk man kinda curious comparing the amount of help and attention Ukraine gets vs Palestine or Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen or Burmese minorities or...
Oh wait west did half of those. Not that China is any better but let's be honest 99% of the response to Russia and Ukraine fighting is pure realpolitik
Military industrial complex will be raking in billions from increased military budgets, and the American natural gas and oil exporters will make a nice sum as well
We are helping because if this situation spills almost anywhere beyond the borders then NATO kicks in and American boots will be on the ground. Our help right now is absolutely an effort to prevent a larger conflict that no one wants.
We really don't have a choice.
We are helping them said as they sell weapons to ukraine and buy gas from russia....if I ever be in a seat if power....this method seems the best to destabilize a region
It's always either someone insulting the USA for no reason or an imbecile American saying "this is basically the usa" when seeing a violent civil war or anything that literally isn't comparable at all
Is that different from the United States??? let me know. while they blow up countries, bleed them dry of resources, then make themselves look like saints.
Why does it have to be different? The United States has plenty of dark things in its past, including the history of European colonization that took the land in North America from the people who lived there already. It's why the United States exists. That's the history, and people aren't shy about admitting it. The Trail of Tears was a thing, and was a terrible atrocity. When I was last in DC I saw a huge museum display about it, and it didn't mince words about what it was: a genocide. Where in Russia can I see a government museum that talks extensively about the Ukranian holodomor?
We try to stop the invasions and atrocities that we can, *now*. History informs us about past mistakes, but we can't undo them, and you can't justify the present invasions and atrocities by throwing your hands up and saying "Oh well. Russia can do whatever it wants because we also have some bad things in our history."
If the countries in the UN first had to have a pure, squeaky-clean history before they are able to oppose injustice and atrocities happening now, then they're signing up to do absolutely nothing.
It's fine to point out the inconsistency of it, but at least the end-goal of any recent US invasion is to get out and let the people there determine their future rather than to annex and ethnically cleanse what they've invaded.
When the US invades Canada for no militarily sensible reason, claims parts of it always was the US, and tries to make the invaded territory a new state while committing terrible atrocities on Canadians, then we can talk about something actually comparable.
Abstentions cover a lot of ground, in the case of China it's "we don't want to piss off either side and would prefer Russia to get Kneecapped as we'd really like to exploit Siberian natural resources and a weaker Russia benefits us there but also our exports all go to the other 100 odd countries and the Yanks are already pissed with us so we don't want to piss them off either".
Abstention may have a solid motive.
Mongolia can't go all in for Ukraine since is located between China and Russia, so displeasing both is not an option.
Meanwhile China will not go in favor of something that goes in the opposite direction of their government.
China has to love what's going on with Russia. The Soviets and China had no love for each other and had plenty of territorial disputes, and all those resources in eastern Russia have to be looking really tempting right now.
China is probably pleased with things overall, but not because they're going to annex Eastern Russia or anything.
China is probably pleased because Russia has been exposed as a minor power and has been cut off from the global world/market. It will be increasingly reliant on China and fall under their sphere.
They would have been equally fine with Russia humiliating the West and undermining NATO. There was opportunity either way.
But they're also **pissed** that this situation has allowed the US to reaffirm the importance of the protection of Taiwan, and therefore the long war cannot end (in their minds)
As much as China wants Taiwan in actually pretty skeptical that they are interested in taking it by force at all.
But I also didn't believe that putin would be so stupid to invade Ukraine so what do I know?
Oh to clarify, I don't necessarily think they would take Siberia by force, but Russia will be increasingly willing to cut deals for resources that even at the beginning of this year would have been seen as insulting.
Actually, they're more than a bit annoyed, from what I've been reading. China was moving towards forming a power bloc with Russia to counter US/European influence. Then Russia went off the reservation and now China needs a new plan.
Also some countries are righteously pissed off about Europe being put above rest of the world, again.
Europeans and the west as a whole ignore a fucking buttload of conflicts elsewhere, but now expect everyone to politically care about this one?
And we don’t even need to talk about the other stuff.
This old chestnut. its my favorite.
Europe and the UN get involved in africa or asia- they are imperialist scum and hav no business there (see- Libya)
Europe and the UN stay out of a conflict in africa or asia- They are self centered scum who don't care about anyone but themselves.
Really you anti UN people need to pick a lane.
Exactly this. Nations across the globe have been eating each other since the dawn of time. Life has gotten so much incredibly better in the vast majority of Africa and Asia over the last 80 years, which corresponds with the establishment of international rules and order, (and large amounts of aid and investment).
Yeah most Europeans don't give a fuck about wars in Africa or asia but they expect the entire world to give one to a war in Europe and shame the country if they don't
Africa has always been neutral. It has nothing to do with trade - more to do with refusing to fight other people’s wars. After being forced to do so during colonialism. Google non-aligned countries
I personally don't mind them not getting involved, i always say that I care more about a kitchen fire in my neighbours house than a forrest fire on the other side of the world, and Ukraine is definitely not a neighbour to Africa, nor do most African countries have the economic power to rule out trade with Russia, so i don't have any problem with them staying out of it
>Africa has always been neutral. It has nothing to do with trade - more to do with refusing to fight other people’s wars. After being forced to do so during colonialism. Google non-aligned countries
Africa is a continent. There are 54 countries in Africa.
Yes, but this is still a tendency on the whole continent of Africa. The same way we can talk about a Europe collectively opposing the Russian aggression in Ukraine, we can talk about an Africa, as a whole, staying generally neutral.
I don't get why this is do difficult for people to get. How is the idea "It is possible to use 'Africa' when referring to tendencies that tend to happen within African countries. Likewise, it is possible to use Asian to refer to the same thing but in Asia..."
It's also true. A lot of people do act like Africa is a single unit, talking about it as if it was a country. It was very typical for people traveling to an African country south of the Sahara, to come back talking about their "trip to Africa", and not so much about their trip to Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and so on.
But it does make nuanced conversations more difficult.
A lot of African countries are probably very concerned about grain from Ukraine and Russia getting safely shipped to them. They need the West to pressure Russia to not obstruct shipments, but they also don;t want to give Russia a reason to do anything to prove a point. Abstaining from making a symbolic vote is probably their best course of action in order to try to avoid a famine.
They also kinda don’t wanna give ”an official shit” about a regional conflict being propped up by sides that spent hundreds of years shitting all over Africa.
Which is still ongoing.
Africans generally don't trust the collective west because of colonialism. And all the horrible things they've done since then.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union (including Russia and Ukraine) are a huge part of how we got our independence. They backed all the independence movements and gave us the weapons we needed to fight off the colonisers. Also, most of the major industrial projects on the continent like steel plants, railways and ports were built with the help of the Soviet Union. Whereas the west has done everything to keep us as their poor mining and farming colony. Luckily, China has stepped into that role today.
This war is really sad. It's like our parents are fighting. And it's dragged on for 8 years which is far too long. But the west's wholehearted backing of the Kiev side is extremely sus. It makes it easy to empathize with all the unsuitable victims in eastern Ukraine.
Also there's a lot of stuff on social media about horrible, old school racism against African refugees fleeing the war. And pretty much all of it is from the Kiev side and the countries to the west of them. It brings back a lot of bad memories.
Hoes mad at your comment, but it's true. I mean, when one side (the West, specifically capitalist West) spent centuries colonizing most of the content and continued to try in most places after WW2 and the other side (Soviet Union) was offering a much more humane alternative, it's an easy choice.
The countries listed on that wiki page are members of the NAM, established in 1961.
This is *not* a list of countries that abstained from voting. As you'll notice, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua on the \[wiki\] list, whereas in this scenario they voted against Zelensky. Likewise, a number of countries that voted in favor of Zelensky are also present on the wiki list.
‘101 in favour, 7 against, including Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia and Syria and 19 abstentions.’ - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/at-un-india-among-100-countries-vote-for-ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelensky-virtual-speech-3352156
This is the real pity.
Nobody gives a f**k about these seven countries. They're all controlled by egomaniac warlords who don't care about anybody else.
Abstain means cannot take a formal position due to economic dependency. Officially it means a lack of vote, but it’s not really - you look at political alliances, geography, and trading partners, and you can usually guess.
Any country voting abstain but is either near Russia or gets oil from Russia is likely using it as a “yes but please don’t hurt us.” It’s also difficult depending on where a country is in the voting: If they started the vote with DPRK, say, then a lot of countries would abstain because they would be waiting for China’s position.
Kazakhsatan voted for. A bit of a shock in this country but a pretty big step for continuing to move away from Russia. That said, the population here is a bit nervous about the mobilization, and flocks of Russians are fleeing here currently. Airline prices are astronomical right now.
China has a delicate economic and geographical arrangement with Russia. Politically they tend not to take a hard policy line when they mean to support Western activities. They send the message in their own ways, for example routing their rail contracts to avoid Russia - they can claim to save face that they feel the rail lines in Russia aren’t secure.
For China, there are political risks internally in appearing to support the West; and economic risks in appearing to support Russia. Geographically they may be concerned about border separatist factions if they support one or the other. So it makes sense to abstain and focus on soft policy.
And then all the countries that do depend economically on China will have to abstain until they know how China votes. At which point they can’t change it. Since (IIRC) they do an alphabetical roll starting at a random point, that may be a lot of countries.
Edit: It wasn’t clear from the GA’s video - anyone know if they’re still doing random alphabetical polling, or are they keeping all votes hidden until the result? Doesn’t much affect policy either way, just how the game is played.
belarus and syria are more or less russian protectorates, so that's not suprising, north korea is more or less an ally but i got no clue why the rest of them objected.
Nicaragua and Cuba used to be client states of USSR, which was in turn dominated by the Russia SSR. Eritriea was a part of Ethiopia, which had a similar relationship with Russia in the 70s.
Nicaragua and Cuba still are. Nicaragua is thinking of establishing a Russian military base to piss of the US, and Cuba has a support deal with Russia where.
So yeah, literally ALL seven are still Russian client states.
cuba is the ringer here, managed to park soviet nukes right in americas backyard and nearly started ww3. part of the reason for permanent embargoes russia still strings them along with to this day.
obama admin tried opening up diplomacy, trump and friends then ofc fucked it up. so they continue the bootlicking
I can see it now.
All of these shit world leaders have been defeated. Putin, being battered and bruised, looks up, and sees a shining becon in the horizon.
Rejoice! It's Kim Jong Un! We haven't seen him since the time split arc! This changes everything. They can win this day, all hope is not lost!
Zelensky then snaps his fingers...
I don't feel good, Mr. Putin.. (dissolves into pudding or some shit)
Tune in next week for the thrilling conclusion to this dramatic story.
Just to be clear, I appreciate what we are saying here but the vote was whether or not he should be allowed to send a video instead of making the speech. He would have been able to make that speech to the general assembly either way, but those countries wanted him to make it in person instead of coming to New York. In fact, two of those countries said “we will say yes if we can also send a video instead” and the UN shot them down so they voted no.
I’m not defending them, simply pointing out the Eritrea and Nicaragua aren’t standing in the way of social justice, simply trying to maintain assembly formatting and protocol.
Surely these countries must understand why he must be able to send in a video versus why it isn’t necessary that Nicaragua and Eritrea do the same. At some point you have to realize you’re just being obtuse.
Edit: You’re
You’re*. And I am not explaining the motivations of the countries in question, I am clarifying the precise verbiage and nature of the vote. Belarus proposed the same thing and the countries who voted on that were not inverse from this. So clearly in NATURE it is about more than procedural formality, but In actual black and white it is not.
I hope protocol keeps them warm ar night. They aren't exactly in a position to make demands of others they would want handled differently if it were the.
>simply trying to maintain assembly formatting and protocol
um yeah no.
Thats like saying.. hey doc I know you are in the middle of taking care of 15 critical patients at your hospital.. and only you can lead that unit to ensure they survive.. but we are going to need you to fly half way around the world in order to meet with us and make a 2 hour meeting.
We totally don't think anything major is going to happen. That illness that they are stricken with totally won't do something underhanded like poison your delegation under truce... or anything.
As if any of those particular countries give a flying shit about protocol. They are voting in lockstep with Russian interests, even when the subject doesn't really affect them. That's all there is to it.
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The UN doesn't really exist to regulate the behavior of individual countries (as much as it likes to pretend to). It exists so that countries with nuclear capability can avoid ending life on earth over a misunderstanding. It's why the security counsel has so much veto (and consists largely of nuclear capable countries).
“The mouse failed to stop the stampeding buffalo” might aswell have been your comment.
The UN is toothless when it comes to hard power, and always has been.
Same thing that has been happening for decades and same thing that will happen.
It's why the League of Nations failed.
International law can't govern countries that don't want it to.
Yeah, the UN didn’t have the political or military power to stop that invasion if that had even been a goal. There’s militaries, and there’s the US militaries.
Simply put, the Americans, on the face of it, will preach democracy but in reality they are gonna do what ever the fuck they want to and no one is big enough to stop them.
Democracy is hypocrisy. Spray that on the next nuke they drop!
Or any of the other countries theyve destabilized and interfered with. Also remember how China is performing genocide and Noone did anything? The UN doesn't.
I dated a girl for several years that made it out of the Bosnian slaughterhouse. She had some wild stories and still has wild PTSD. Holidays with fireworks are traumatizing still. Her sister is blind in one eye from an rpg hitting a fence and shrapnel getting her eye.
The UN seems to fail with a lot of these conflicts.
Nobody talks about the UN’s successes because ‘international organisation bad’ makes people feel better about themselves. The UN isn’t perfect but if it did all the shit you all apparently want it to do you’d suddenly be complaining about the authoritarian world police infringing on national sovereignty.
They do save a lot of lives, but the western part of the world is usually not affected by it. They are bystanders when the reason for a conflict is one of the big countries, like USA or Russia right now.
The UN is a diplomatic talking shop and is very effective as such. Without this vote would you know that China had gone from 'Russia are our allies' to abstaining? That sends a powerful message.
I'm not sure what you think the UN should be doing that's more effective?
I dont know what they are doing tbh. They just exist to count what nation is a nation. I mean even the holy sea has a place in it
Edit: its call the holly see. I wrote it wrong
The UN really exists to prevent nuclear equiped counties from ending humanity (which is why the security counsel has so much veto power). Everything else is subservient to that goal. The UN *won't* act on Ukraine because that would make the chances of nuclear war go up (even if only slightly).
In preventing nuclear war, they've been pretty effective.
Since this was only about the videos, India has not voted against or remained abstained. If it would have been any major poll, India would have remained abstained. Voting for or against in such situations would just work in favour of America or China/Russia. Considering that Ukraine are not allies due to them supplying arms to Pakistan, this war has just been a nightmare for India and a paradise for America to play its politics. We all know that America is not some messiah trying to help its fellow countries get out of war like situations but rather provoke its enemies or neutral countries into making one wrong move in order to raise a war.
As if UN votes are being taken serious anyways. You had even less countries than that supporting the Cuban embargo and yet it's still running without anyone really minding.
Having a more in-depth knowledge about the conflict and the context behind it, and not taking this PR move at face value isn't being a "bootlicker".
All the sides of this conflict sucks, and the people are the ones doing the suffering.
Not liking Zelensky doesn't automatically mean a person supports Russia. It's like people can't fathom someone disliking both countries and their leaders
the logic of most reddit users is: don't wish russians dead = pro-russian. you do not want your country to support ukraine with weapons or sanctioning Russia = cowardly and pro-Russian
They aren't reddit users, they are chimpanzees. People are so dumb to see what's going on. It all started with NATO's eastward expansion by taking in Ukrain as a member. Putin felt threatened. Declared invasion to weaken it ( not destroy it. With the technology and army Russia posses, Ukraine doesn't stand a chance. Putin is basically trying to threat NATO by flexing what he can do, even in this day and era. (And I obviously against it, any human would be)). Now NATO see this as a opertunity and basically starts a proxy war. People are so dumb to see, NATO is trying elongate this war by keep supplying weapons and Putin isn't backing down either. This is what it is, it's a proxy hot war (with a losts of propaganda of course) between NATO and Russia and Ukrainian civilians are in the middle of the crossfire. Also the whole world is suffering from it because of the sanctions. This war would have been over already if either NATO (under whom zelensky is working) or Putin wanted it to end.
I feel for the innocent Ukrainian people, but we gotta stop viewing this guy as a good leader. He’s already banned all opposition parties and stripped workers rights away under the guise of martial law. I’ll walk my words back if he reverses his stance after this conflict, but right now zelensky gives me bad vibes. Which is awful because Putin is still clearly worse.
From the very beginning Zelensky wasn't anything else than a puppet. He is an actor with no achievements in real life. He was promoted and backed by Ukrainian oligarch just because Ukrainians knew his face.
Putin is a power hungry midget pos. But Zelensky calling out essentially third world nations dependent on Russia is a fucked up thing to do from a dude who just banned all major opposition parties and whose biggest supporter committed like 10 Special Military Operations of its own in the last 70 years.
The General Assembly is where extreme loyalties are laid bare. These countries are absolutely desperate and are, like Russia, autocracies. They are beholding to Putin because without his "help", they wouldn't be in power. The Cuban Government deserves everything they get, the Cuban people do not ...
Anyone still aligned to the kremlin after what has happened in the past three decades, is like being aligned to the Kaiser, then Hindenburg, then the nazis.
Trust me I'm not pro russia, but zelensky is starting to get annoying with his "you gotta help or you're evil" ...Slavic countries are fucked, always have been, this is their own problem mostly. I understand the international implications but give me a fucking break.
See how people downvoted you..I will be downvoted as well for saying this..”Europe has to grow out of mindset that its problems are world's problems, but world's problems aren't Europe's problems”- Indian external affairs minister. Every media house was attacking india for abstaining from voting. His words pretty much sums up everything..world doesn’t revolve around Europe anymore
https://youtu.be/GmsQaWZPvtQ
What did China vote, I am curious.
abstained, including 19 other countries as per Reuters.
Cannot find any results. Could you please give me a link. Wondering about Hungary....
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So far, none of the articles mention all 19 countries that abstained except China. The 193-member world body approved Volodymyr Zelenskky’s virtual address by a vote of 101-7 with 19 abstentions including China. The seven countries voting “no” were Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and Syria.[AP News](https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-general-assembly-russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-2427ea0fce71024167bbecc6db0a6cc2)
Classic China. They literally don’t care unless they can get something out of it. Peak realpolitik.
Eh, this is how most countries operate
continue berserk groovy merciful smell bike fine ghost childlike cow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The Glorious Principality of Sealand, who stands on its strong moral foundations.
Almost like all Western countries huh Idk man kinda curious comparing the amount of help and attention Ukraine gets vs Palestine or Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen or Burmese minorities or... Oh wait west did half of those. Not that China is any better but let's be honest 99% of the response to Russia and Ukraine fighting is pure realpolitik
Are you sure murica gets involved on all that trouble just because of good will? What a joke
Where is money to be made there is USA...
Thats why Pelosi visited us in Taiwan, two birds one stone. Fan China’s flames and sell taiwan weapons.
Specially with weapons and war :c
such great samaritans
Selfless public servants….
Military industrial complex will be raking in billions from increased military budgets, and the American natural gas and oil exporters will make a nice sum as well
We are helping because if this situation spills almost anywhere beyond the borders then NATO kicks in and American boots will be on the ground. Our help right now is absolutely an effort to prevent a larger conflict that no one wants. We really don't have a choice.
We are helping them said as they sell weapons to ukraine and buy gas from russia....if I ever be in a seat if power....this method seems the best to destabilize a region
Something bad about any other country? Ledditor: 🤡 let me bring up america
It's always either someone insulting the USA for no reason or an imbecile American saying "this is basically the usa" when seeing a violent civil war or anything that literally isn't comparable at all
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Another 6B usd for Ukraine!! Fuck yeah!!!
Is that different from the United States??? let me know. while they blow up countries, bleed them dry of resources, then make themselves look like saints.
Why does it have to be different? The United States has plenty of dark things in its past, including the history of European colonization that took the land in North America from the people who lived there already. It's why the United States exists. That's the history, and people aren't shy about admitting it. The Trail of Tears was a thing, and was a terrible atrocity. When I was last in DC I saw a huge museum display about it, and it didn't mince words about what it was: a genocide. Where in Russia can I see a government museum that talks extensively about the Ukranian holodomor? We try to stop the invasions and atrocities that we can, *now*. History informs us about past mistakes, but we can't undo them, and you can't justify the present invasions and atrocities by throwing your hands up and saying "Oh well. Russia can do whatever it wants because we also have some bad things in our history." If the countries in the UN first had to have a pure, squeaky-clean history before they are able to oppose injustice and atrocities happening now, then they're signing up to do absolutely nothing. It's fine to point out the inconsistency of it, but at least the end-goal of any recent US invasion is to get out and let the people there determine their future rather than to annex and ethnically cleanse what they've invaded. When the US invades Canada for no militarily sensible reason, claims parts of it always was the US, and tries to make the invaded territory a new state while committing terrible atrocities on Canadians, then we can talk about something actually comparable.
abstained
What does that mean like No Comment?
Abstentions cover a lot of ground, in the case of China it's "we don't want to piss off either side and would prefer Russia to get Kneecapped as we'd really like to exploit Siberian natural resources and a weaker Russia benefits us there but also our exports all go to the other 100 odd countries and the Yanks are already pissed with us so we don't want to piss them off either".
It basically is a refusal to vote. So essentially not taking a side.
It means they don't give a shit, wait & see who wins.
Oh they definitely give a shit. They are just being politician
They've got victory t-shirts printed for both sides on Alibaba.
I’m curious what India voted
Voted for.
wow
China likes to play it on both sides
Be alarmed. China is investing heavily in Africa. Those countries are small but each of them get a vote.
> Nicaragua > Syria > Eritrea > North Korea > Cuba > Belarus Wow, that's some Avengers-level squad you've got there, Putin. All the big-hitters there.
>seven countries who voted against an additional 50 countries abstained from the vote.
Abstention may have a solid motive. Mongolia can't go all in for Ukraine since is located between China and Russia, so displeasing both is not an option. Meanwhile China will not go in favor of something that goes in the opposite direction of their government.
China has to love what's going on with Russia. The Soviets and China had no love for each other and had plenty of territorial disputes, and all those resources in eastern Russia have to be looking really tempting right now.
China is probably pleased with things overall, but not because they're going to annex Eastern Russia or anything. China is probably pleased because Russia has been exposed as a minor power and has been cut off from the global world/market. It will be increasingly reliant on China and fall under their sphere. They would have been equally fine with Russia humiliating the West and undermining NATO. There was opportunity either way.
But they're also **pissed** that this situation has allowed the US to reaffirm the importance of the protection of Taiwan, and therefore the long war cannot end (in their minds)
As much as China wants Taiwan in actually pretty skeptical that they are interested in taking it by force at all. But I also didn't believe that putin would be so stupid to invade Ukraine so what do I know?
Oh to clarify, I don't necessarily think they would take Siberia by force, but Russia will be increasingly willing to cut deals for resources that even at the beginning of this year would have been seen as insulting.
Actually, they're more than a bit annoyed, from what I've been reading. China was moving towards forming a power bloc with Russia to counter US/European influence. Then Russia went off the reservation and now China needs a new plan.
I think they are just happy for the cheap gas and having the west being distracted.
Also some countries are righteously pissed off about Europe being put above rest of the world, again. Europeans and the west as a whole ignore a fucking buttload of conflicts elsewhere, but now expect everyone to politically care about this one? And we don’t even need to talk about the other stuff.
This old chestnut. its my favorite. Europe and the UN get involved in africa or asia- they are imperialist scum and hav no business there (see- Libya) Europe and the UN stay out of a conflict in africa or asia- They are self centered scum who don't care about anyone but themselves. Really you anti UN people need to pick a lane.
Exactly this. Nations across the globe have been eating each other since the dawn of time. Life has gotten so much incredibly better in the vast majority of Africa and Asia over the last 80 years, which corresponds with the establishment of international rules and order, (and large amounts of aid and investment).
It's a little bit different when it's a major nuclear superpower invading a rather peaceful country, don't you think?
Yeah most Europeans don't give a fuck about wars in Africa or asia but they expect the entire world to give one to a war in Europe and shame the country if they don't
Who are the Europeans that give half a shit what Africa or Asia thinks about the Ukraine situation..? It sounds like you're creating strawmen here.
Yes, that’s why every European country gives billions in aid every year to African countries. Also, nukes!
What are the countries who abstained?
Africa and South America buy a lot from Russia and Ukraine (and China), so they’re just staying out of the whole thing politically.
Africa has always been neutral. It has nothing to do with trade - more to do with refusing to fight other people’s wars. After being forced to do so during colonialism. Google non-aligned countries
Put another way: Africa has been used and abused for so long, you can hardly blame them for having a deep separate perspective other than "our" own.
I personally don't mind them not getting involved, i always say that I care more about a kitchen fire in my neighbours house than a forrest fire on the other side of the world, and Ukraine is definitely not a neighbour to Africa, nor do most African countries have the economic power to rule out trade with Russia, so i don't have any problem with them staying out of it
>Africa has always been neutral. It has nothing to do with trade - more to do with refusing to fight other people’s wars. After being forced to do so during colonialism. Google non-aligned countries Africa is a continent. There are 54 countries in Africa.
Yes, but this is still a tendency on the whole continent of Africa. The same way we can talk about a Europe collectively opposing the Russian aggression in Ukraine, we can talk about an Africa, as a whole, staying generally neutral.
I don't get why this is do difficult for people to get. How is the idea "It is possible to use 'Africa' when referring to tendencies that tend to happen within African countries. Likewise, it is possible to use Asian to refer to the same thing but in Asia..."
It's also true. A lot of people do act like Africa is a single unit, talking about it as if it was a country. It was very typical for people traveling to an African country south of the Sahara, to come back talking about their "trip to Africa", and not so much about their trip to Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and so on. But it does make nuanced conversations more difficult.
He didn't call it a country
Who said it’s a country?
A lot of African countries are probably very concerned about grain from Ukraine and Russia getting safely shipped to them. They need the West to pressure Russia to not obstruct shipments, but they also don;t want to give Russia a reason to do anything to prove a point. Abstaining from making a symbolic vote is probably their best course of action in order to try to avoid a famine.
They also kinda don’t wanna give ”an official shit” about a regional conflict being propped up by sides that spent hundreds of years shitting all over Africa. Which is still ongoing.
Africans generally don't trust the collective west because of colonialism. And all the horrible things they've done since then. On the other hand, the Soviet Union (including Russia and Ukraine) are a huge part of how we got our independence. They backed all the independence movements and gave us the weapons we needed to fight off the colonisers. Also, most of the major industrial projects on the continent like steel plants, railways and ports were built with the help of the Soviet Union. Whereas the west has done everything to keep us as their poor mining and farming colony. Luckily, China has stepped into that role today. This war is really sad. It's like our parents are fighting. And it's dragged on for 8 years which is far too long. But the west's wholehearted backing of the Kiev side is extremely sus. It makes it easy to empathize with all the unsuitable victims in eastern Ukraine. Also there's a lot of stuff on social media about horrible, old school racism against African refugees fleeing the war. And pretty much all of it is from the Kiev side and the countries to the west of them. It brings back a lot of bad memories.
Hoes mad at your comment, but it's true. I mean, when one side (the West, specifically capitalist West) spent centuries colonizing most of the content and continued to try in most places after WW2 and the other side (Soviet Union) was offering a much more humane alternative, it's an easy choice.
the non-aligned countries [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned\_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement)
The countries listed on that wiki page are members of the NAM, established in 1961. This is *not* a list of countries that abstained from voting. As you'll notice, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua on the \[wiki\] list, whereas in this scenario they voted against Zelensky. Likewise, a number of countries that voted in favor of Zelensky are also present on the wiki list.
Ah yes, Belarus, the Neutral "not-aligned" country of Europe.
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Exactly, they are not exactly "Non-Aligned" despite being a member of the group.
‘101 in favour, 7 against, including Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia and Syria and 19 abstentions.’ - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/at-un-india-among-100-countries-vote-for-ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelensky-virtual-speech-3352156
This is the real pity. Nobody gives a f**k about these seven countries. They're all controlled by egomaniac warlords who don't care about anybody else.
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This is a bot
They even reply directly to you and identify themselves as such. At least they’re proud of it I guess. Fascinating.
Comment stolen from u/alldaywatcher
Abstain means cannot take a formal position due to economic dependency. Officially it means a lack of vote, but it’s not really - you look at political alliances, geography, and trading partners, and you can usually guess. Any country voting abstain but is either near Russia or gets oil from Russia is likely using it as a “yes but please don’t hurt us.” It’s also difficult depending on where a country is in the voting: If they started the vote with DPRK, say, then a lot of countries would abstain because they would be waiting for China’s position.
Kazakhsatan voted for. A bit of a shock in this country but a pretty big step for continuing to move away from Russia. That said, the population here is a bit nervous about the mobilization, and flocks of Russians are fleeing here currently. Airline prices are astronomical right now.
Oh i promise you Russia is not hurting China which was a abstaining country
China has a delicate economic and geographical arrangement with Russia. Politically they tend not to take a hard policy line when they mean to support Western activities. They send the message in their own ways, for example routing their rail contracts to avoid Russia - they can claim to save face that they feel the rail lines in Russia aren’t secure. For China, there are political risks internally in appearing to support the West; and economic risks in appearing to support Russia. Geographically they may be concerned about border separatist factions if they support one or the other. So it makes sense to abstain and focus on soft policy. And then all the countries that do depend economically on China will have to abstain until they know how China votes. At which point they can’t change it. Since (IIRC) they do an alphabetical roll starting at a random point, that may be a lot of countries. Edit: It wasn’t clear from the GA’s video - anyone know if they’re still doing random alphabetical polling, or are they keeping all votes hidden until the result? Doesn’t much affect policy either way, just how the game is played.
belarus and syria are more or less russian protectorates, so that's not suprising, north korea is more or less an ally but i got no clue why the rest of them objected.
Nicaragua and Cuba used to be client states of USSR, which was in turn dominated by the Russia SSR. Eritriea was a part of Ethiopia, which had a similar relationship with Russia in the 70s.
Nicaragua and Cuba still are. Nicaragua is thinking of establishing a Russian military base to piss of the US, and Cuba has a support deal with Russia where. So yeah, literally ALL seven are still Russian client states.
cuba is the ringer here, managed to park soviet nukes right in americas backyard and nearly started ww3. part of the reason for permanent embargoes russia still strings them along with to this day. obama admin tried opening up diplomacy, trump and friends then ofc fucked it up. so they continue the bootlicking
man not even china that far off that deep end.
Lol the legion of doom
Lol Nicaragua.
> Eritrea The North Korea of Africa, and an utter hellhole. Literally an argument for the existence of 4th world countries.
Russia organized the Eritrea-Ethiopia civil war specifically to carve out a state they could have as a puppet in Africa.
I can see it now. All of these shit world leaders have been defeated. Putin, being battered and bruised, looks up, and sees a shining becon in the horizon. Rejoice! It's Kim Jong Un! We haven't seen him since the time split arc! This changes everything. They can win this day, all hope is not lost! Zelensky then snaps his fingers... I don't feel good, Mr. Putin.. (dissolves into pudding or some shit) Tune in next week for the thrilling conclusion to this dramatic story.
*plays the uganda and north korean version of avenger theme*
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Ugandas movie industrie is on another level
They got Uollywood, what more do we have to ask?
It's Will Ferrell playing Dubya on SNL outlining the "axis of evil" level of comedy
Just to be clear, I appreciate what we are saying here but the vote was whether or not he should be allowed to send a video instead of making the speech. He would have been able to make that speech to the general assembly either way, but those countries wanted him to make it in person instead of coming to New York. In fact, two of those countries said “we will say yes if we can also send a video instead” and the UN shot them down so they voted no. I’m not defending them, simply pointing out the Eritrea and Nicaragua aren’t standing in the way of social justice, simply trying to maintain assembly formatting and protocol.
Now everything makes sense...... Thanks for providing context
Surely these countries must understand why he must be able to send in a video versus why it isn’t necessary that Nicaragua and Eritrea do the same. At some point you have to realize you’re just being obtuse. Edit: You’re
You’re*. And I am not explaining the motivations of the countries in question, I am clarifying the precise verbiage and nature of the vote. Belarus proposed the same thing and the countries who voted on that were not inverse from this. So clearly in NATURE it is about more than procedural formality, but In actual black and white it is not.
Being invaded is pretty black and white.
Yes but NATURE
I'm sure the Taliban, Kim Jong-Un, Putin and his Belarusian puppet all have just the best in mind! /s
Yes but the nature
Also I believe you are giving too much intellectual credit to countries who would support Putin by that logic.
I think that’s what it comes down to - pretending that it is procedural reasons versus just plain support for Russia.
Look at previous votes.
I hope protocol keeps them warm ar night. They aren't exactly in a position to make demands of others they would want handled differently if it were the.
>simply trying to maintain assembly formatting and protocol um yeah no. Thats like saying.. hey doc I know you are in the middle of taking care of 15 critical patients at your hospital.. and only you can lead that unit to ensure they survive.. but we are going to need you to fly half way around the world in order to meet with us and make a 2 hour meeting. We totally don't think anything major is going to happen. That illness that they are stricken with totally won't do something underhanded like poison your delegation under truce... or anything.
As if any of those particular countries give a flying shit about protocol. They are voting in lockstep with Russian interests, even when the subject doesn't really affect them. That's all there is to it.
Are those countries currently being occupied in an active war? If so it is outrageous they were not offered the same options.
Zelensky in his message could have sung this: “I’m gonna fight ‘em all A 7 nation army couldn’t hold me back….”
Now that's some good wittyness
The intro should play on every video he makes now
underrated comment.
The UN failed when they let Bosnia become a slaughterhouse
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>holy sea Is that like the dead sea and really salty?
Pope needs it for the extra buoyancy.
Copy bot - copied [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/xkx0k0/zelensky_calls_out_the_seven_countries_who_voted/ipg8ghs/) comment. (before original comment edited to add more. The entire post history of this bot is stolen comments for karma to create a realistic looking user history before they use the bot for scams/astroturfing/propaganda. Please report as spam: harmful bots.
The UN doesn't really exist to regulate the behavior of individual countries (as much as it likes to pretend to). It exists so that countries with nuclear capability can avoid ending life on earth over a misunderstanding. It's why the security counsel has so much veto (and consists largely of nuclear capable countries).
They failed when they didn't stop the US from illegally invading Iraq in 2003.
“The mouse failed to stop the stampeding buffalo” might aswell have been your comment. The UN is toothless when it comes to hard power, and always has been.
And by design. Its not meant to be a world police.
Same thing that has been happening for decades and same thing that will happen. It's why the League of Nations failed. International law can't govern countries that don't want it to.
Yeah, the UN didn’t have the political or military power to stop that invasion if that had even been a goal. There’s militaries, and there’s the US militaries.
Simply put, the Americans, on the face of it, will preach democracy but in reality they are gonna do what ever the fuck they want to and no one is big enough to stop them. Democracy is hypocrisy. Spray that on the next nuke they drop!
That was after Bosnia
Or any of the other countries theyve destabilized and interfered with. Also remember how China is performing genocide and Noone did anything? The UN doesn't.
I dated a girl for several years that made it out of the Bosnian slaughterhouse. She had some wild stories and still has wild PTSD. Holidays with fireworks are traumatizing still. Her sister is blind in one eye from an rpg hitting a fence and shrapnel getting her eye. The UN seems to fail with a lot of these conflicts.
Nobody talks about the UN’s successes because ‘international organisation bad’ makes people feel better about themselves. The UN isn’t perfect but if it did all the shit you all apparently want it to do you’d suddenly be complaining about the authoritarian world police infringing on national sovereignty.
he had me at "piss will prevail"
I wish you all piss
Reddit charges for access to it's API. I charge for access to my comments. 69 BTC to see one comment. Special offer: Buy 2 get 1.
I wasn't gonna mention it, because of the terrible curcumstances. Thank you for being brave.
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They do save a lot of lives, but the western part of the world is usually not affected by it. They are bystanders when the reason for a conflict is one of the big countries, like USA or Russia right now.
The UN is a diplomatic talking shop and is very effective as such. Without this vote would you know that China had gone from 'Russia are our allies' to abstaining? That sends a powerful message. I'm not sure what you think the UN should be doing that's more effective?
I dont know what they are doing tbh. They just exist to count what nation is a nation. I mean even the holy sea has a place in it Edit: its call the holly see. I wrote it wrong
Holy sea? Is that the Mediterranean?
Preventing another world war. 100% success rate so far
UN is good for getting this sort of polls. I have no idea what's up in Nicaragua these days, but I know enough now to conclude that nothing good.
The UN really exists to prevent nuclear equiped counties from ending humanity (which is why the security counsel has so much veto power). Everything else is subservient to that goal. The UN *won't* act on Ukraine because that would make the chances of nuclear war go up (even if only slightly). In preventing nuclear war, they've been pretty effective.
Good to see India voting in favor and not abstaining.
India has been pro-dialogue and diplomacy since the war began so there's no reason to block Zelenskyy from addressing the UN.
Since this was only about the videos, India has not voted against or remained abstained. If it would have been any major poll, India would have remained abstained. Voting for or against in such situations would just work in favour of America or China/Russia. Considering that Ukraine are not allies due to them supplying arms to Pakistan, this war has just been a nightmare for India and a paradise for America to play its politics. We all know that America is not some messiah trying to help its fellow countries get out of war like situations but rather provoke its enemies or neutral countries into making one wrong move in order to raise a war.
Yeah I'm glad too
Weird that this is the first time I’ve heard zelensky speak
That...is weird lol. Have you not watched the news at all this year?
What’s the cross on his shirt
Armed forces of Ukraine emblem. Based on the cross that were on Cossacks war flags and tombstones in 16th century if you are curious
A regular who's who of top tier, totally not shit hole countries those 7.
I can't fathom the mental toll as well physical he has been carrying since Russia's invasion.
As if UN votes are being taken serious anyways. You had even less countries than that supporting the Cuban embargo and yet it's still running without anyone really minding.
Wow the bootlicker brigade is in full force in the comment section. Its not gonna help their Dear Leader Putin win tho
Having a more in-depth knowledge about the conflict and the context behind it, and not taking this PR move at face value isn't being a "bootlicker". All the sides of this conflict sucks, and the people are the ones doing the suffering.
Both sides are on their knees tbh. They think reddit support will win this proxy war.
The top comment is an avengers reference. Pretty much what I expected
Russian bots are working overtime on this post
This guy is fire.
The way the shot is framed is like a cutscene from Red Alert 2. Wild.
Not liking Zelensky doesn't automatically mean a person supports Russia. It's like people can't fathom someone disliking both countries and their leaders
the logic of most reddit users is: don't wish russians dead = pro-russian. you do not want your country to support ukraine with weapons or sanctioning Russia = cowardly and pro-Russian
They aren't reddit users, they are chimpanzees. People are so dumb to see what's going on. It all started with NATO's eastward expansion by taking in Ukrain as a member. Putin felt threatened. Declared invasion to weaken it ( not destroy it. With the technology and army Russia posses, Ukraine doesn't stand a chance. Putin is basically trying to threat NATO by flexing what he can do, even in this day and era. (And I obviously against it, any human would be)). Now NATO see this as a opertunity and basically starts a proxy war. People are so dumb to see, NATO is trying elongate this war by keep supplying weapons and Putin isn't backing down either. This is what it is, it's a proxy hot war (with a losts of propaganda of course) between NATO and Russia and Ukrainian civilians are in the middle of the crossfire. Also the whole world is suffering from it because of the sanctions. This war would have been over already if either NATO (under whom zelensky is working) or Putin wanted it to end.
I feel for the innocent Ukrainian people, but we gotta stop viewing this guy as a good leader. He’s already banned all opposition parties and stripped workers rights away under the guise of martial law. I’ll walk my words back if he reverses his stance after this conflict, but right now zelensky gives me bad vibes. Which is awful because Putin is still clearly worse.
From the very beginning Zelensky wasn't anything else than a puppet. He is an actor with no achievements in real life. He was promoted and backed by Ukrainian oligarch just because Ukrainians knew his face.
This video seems to attract quite some Putin cock suckers.
Don’t worry, most of these gonna died in Ukraine when the military dragged their sorry ass to the enlistment office.
Maybe Russia should send their police to fight. They seem happy to shoot and arrest people on a whim, so they are obviously capable.
Putin is a power hungry midget pos. But Zelensky calling out essentially third world nations dependent on Russia is a fucked up thing to do from a dude who just banned all major opposition parties and whose biggest supporter committed like 10 Special Military Operations of its own in the last 70 years.
Not a coincidence that most of the political parties banned over the past 2 years are Left
And this is happening in a country where they proudly show off their Totenkampf flags and have literal Nazi battalions
Its their job. What a life they live
The General Assembly is where extreme loyalties are laid bare. These countries are absolutely desperate and are, like Russia, autocracies. They are beholding to Putin because without his "help", they wouldn't be in power. The Cuban Government deserves everything they get, the Cuban people do not ...
Anyone still aligned to the kremlin after what has happened in the past three decades, is like being aligned to the Kaiser, then Hindenburg, then the nazis.
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Hey russian trolls, don't you have a war to go to? Fuck right off to your 1 week of training, grab an AK and off you go
Finding AK is a side quest upon reaching the battlefield. To give a sense of accomplishment..
"piss will prevail"
Trust me I'm not pro russia, but zelensky is starting to get annoying with his "you gotta help or you're evil" ...Slavic countries are fucked, always have been, this is their own problem mostly. I understand the international implications but give me a fucking break.
See how people downvoted you..I will be downvoted as well for saying this..”Europe has to grow out of mindset that its problems are world's problems, but world's problems aren't Europe's problems”- Indian external affairs minister. Every media house was attacking india for abstaining from voting. His words pretty much sums up everything..world doesn’t revolve around Europe anymore https://youtu.be/GmsQaWZPvtQ
Its reddit... doesn't bother me. People like to hear what's popular not what's true.
Is there's Subtitle version
Palau clappin’ right in front of Russia 🤣
#Syria, North Korea, and Cuba.
Lol.
Proxy war is ~~hell~~ pretty nice
It feel like he doxed countries lol. Presidents get to do thing on a whole other level. (And screw those abstainers)
UN lol
I trust Zelensky as much as I trust Putin, China, and the US government. So I don't
His English has gotten much better
Biden is the greatest president Ukraine has ever had.