Russia is illegally occupying the USSR seat in the UN Security Council: Ukraine

Kyiv: Ukrainian foreign ministry on Monday said that Russia needs to be removed from the United Nations and it should also not be a permanent member of the Security Council because it gives Moscow the power to veto any resolutions.

"Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole."

Kyiv further said that Russia has been illegally occupying the seat of the USSR in the UN Security Council since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, reported AFP. "From a legal and political point of view, there can be only one conclusion: Russia is a usurper of the Soviet Union's seat in the UN Security Council."

The statement added that Russia's three decades of illegal presence in the UN is marked by wars and seizures of other countries' territories.

Kyiv pointed out that Russia never went through a formal approval process after the end of the USSR like the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which previously held a seat under ‘Czechoslovakia’. "The Russian Federation has never gone through the legal procedure to be admitted to membership," said Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba.

Ukrainian President Zelensky also spoke with PM Modi today seeking India's help to implement a "peace formula" in a phone call. He tweeted: "I had a phone call with [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi and wished for a successful G20 presidency. It was on this platform that I announced the peace formula, and now I count on India’s participation in its implementation. I also thanked for humanitarian aid and support in the UN."