Russia Vows to Veto US Draft on Ukraine at UN
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The US circulated a draft resolution to the UN Security Council that would declare Sunday's planned referendum on independence for Ukraine's Crimea region illegal but Russia has pledged to veto it, council diplomats said on Thursday.
Diplomats said the one-page resolution would urge countries not to recognise the results of the vote in pro-Russian Crimea, whose parliament has already voted to join Russia.
Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, said after a meeting of the 15-member Security Council that the resolution was aimed at changing Russian calculations "before innocent lives are lost".
Speaking in the council, she said the resolution would "endorse a peaceful solution to the Ukraine crisis based on international law and (the Security) Council's mandate to act, when necessary, to ensure global security and peace".
Power described the planned referendum, which is expected to overwhelmingly back Crimea's unification with Russia, as "hastily planned, unjustified and divisive" and a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, Al Jazeera reported.
She said time was running out for a peaceful solution to the crisis, and she urged Russia to listen to the "remarkably unified" voices of 14 members of the Security Council and the Ukrainian people.
Western powers had originally hoped to vote on the resolution at Thursday's council session, which was attended by Arseny Yatseniuk, the interim Ukrainian prime minister.
He appealed for the world body's help. But Russia, one of the five permanent veto-wielding members of the Security Council, made clear that it opposed the draft, so a decision was made to postpone the vote until Saturday at the latest to allow time for further negotiations.
On the ground, Russia conducted new military manoeuvres near its border with Ukraine on Thursday, and President Vladimir Putin said the world should not blame his country for what he called Ukraine's "internal crisis".
Russia's Defence Ministry announced that thousands of Russian troops in the regions of Rostov, Belgorod, Kursk and Tambov bordering Ukraine were involved in the exercises, which will continue until the end of the month.
In the southern Rostov region, the manoeuvres involved parachuting in 1,500 troops, the ministry said.
The drills included the military conducting large artillery exercises involving 8,500 soldiers and artillery and rocket systems in the south.
In Crimea, where the public will vote on Sunday whether to break away from Ukraine and become part of Russia, residents lined up at their banks to withdraw cash from their accounts amid uncertainty over the future of the peninsula, which Russian troops now control.