Even though the UN General Assembly (UNGA) again unanimously adopted a resolution on the Ukraine war by isolating Russia, the number of countries that backed the move dropped slightly.
In the latest and second voting on Thursday, 140 out of 193 member states of the UNGA were in favor of the move. Bangladesh is among the 140 countries.
But the previous resolution on March 2, which was also against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saw 141 countries backing the UNGA’s demand for ending the war.
The latest resolution, which was drafted by Ukraine and allies, received five votes against - Russia, Syria, North Korean, Eritrea and Belarus - while 38 countries, including China and India, abstained.
In the March 2 resolution, Russia was also joined by Belarus, which has served as a launchpad for Russian invasion forces, Eritrea, North Korea and Syria.
At that time, Bangladesh abstained from voting and later Dhaka defended its act citing “own interest”.
However, Bangladesh said on Friday that its decision in the latest UN resolution was based on humanitarian grounds.
Twelve countries did not even take part in the voting on March 2, with the figure dipping to 10 on Thursday.
Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Morocco, Turkmenistan and Venezuela never joined any of the UN resolutions on the war.
General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding, but they carry political weight.
Ukraine and Western allies have accused Moscow of attacking civilians indiscriminately. Moscow denies attacking civilians.
Countries that changed their stance
Both Botswana and Brunei refrained from the latest UN vote but were in favour on March 2, when Comoros and Dominica, too, backed the resolution.
But the two countries—Comoros and Dominica—were absent in the latest voting. Eswatini, Ethiopia, Guineas-Bissau, Togo and Uzbekistan abstained from voting this time—but they were absent in the previous resolution.
Despite its “yes” vote on March 2, Somalia was not present during Thursday’s voting.
Top Russian arms importers skip voting now too
As it happened in the previous spell of UN resolution on the Russian invasion, four of the five countries buying the maximum number of weapons from Russia again abstained from the voting on Thursday.
India, China, Algeria--the three top importers between 2016 and 2020 -- and Vietnam repeated their stance by skipping the latest vote as they did on March 2. Vietnam was the fifth-highest arms importer over the period.
However, ranked fourth in terms of importing Russian-made weapons, Egypt voted against Russia.
