Linda Thomas-Greenfield entered the podium of the United Nations General Assembly with remarkable restraint. The US ambassador to the UN, otherwise known for her strong language, spoke on Wednesday of the importance of passing this historic resolution opposing Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Diplomats in New York are worried that Russia's isolation could begin to crumble.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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Thomas-Greenfield recalled the situation a year ago, when Washington warned Kiev for weeks that an invasion was imminent – and Moscow countered that it should end the hysteria that an occupation of Ukraine was not planned. The ensuing illegal and unfounded war was not only an attack on Ukraine, the ambassador said, but also on the Charter of the United Nations, which is now threatened in its existence after a year of war by a UN Security Council member. This vote will go down in history.

Thomas-Greenfield quoted her President Joe Biden, who had accused Putin of crimes against humanity in Warsaw, one day after his visit to Kiev. But she avoided talking about tribunals and the like. Their appeal was to the UN member states to defend the principles that make up the United Nations.

A resolution calling for the territorial integrity of Ukraine and a withdrawal of Russian troops from the neighboring country is to be passed in New York today, Thursday. Otherwise, the West avoided pilloriing Moscow. It is important to attract skeptics to the Western camp. In Africa and parts of Latin America, a certain war weariness is spreading. Nor does the narrative that America, which is one of the beneficiaries of the war, be entirely innocent of the development. The strategy of Ukraine's Western supporters is therefore to get as many countries as possible to vote yes. They want to build on the voting results of last year, when 143 states opposed annexations by Moscow in a similar vote in October.

Russia's ambassador draws comparison to World War II

For understandable reasons, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba did not adhere to the West's language: Russia is deporting thousands of children in order to have them adopted by Russian families and re-educated as Russians. "This is genocide, and that's what we're facing today," Kuleba said at the start of a special session. He went on to say that the states of the world could not remain neutral in the face of Russian aggression. He campaigned for support for the resolution.

Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, accused the West of similar motives as in World War II. "This is a war that, as it was 80 years ago, involves a treacherous and powerful enemy who wants to take over our country and subjugate us," he said. The West wants to achieve the end of Russia. "The goal now is to arm Ukraine, thereby inflicting a strategic defeat on my country, dismembering it and destroying it." This is how Nebenzya presented Putin's narrative. Then addressing Berlin, he poisoned: "The German tanks will once again kill Russians."

Foreign Secretary Annalena Baerbock is scheduled to speak on Thursday, along with Antony Blinken, her American counterpart, and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. UN Secretary-General António Guterres had criticized the "implied threats of the use of nuclear weapons" at the start of the debate. A so-called tactical use of nuclear weapons, as Putin has repeatedly indicated, is "completely unacceptable." It is "high time to step back from the abyss."