With a Russian invasion looming, the Ukrainian ambassador sat across from his Russian counterpart, his first chance to unload the frustrations and anxieties of a nation directly to its aggressor. He opened not with a complaint about shelling or a defense of sovereignty but with a request that the United Nations release the legal memos from 1991 that permitted Russia to take over the Soviet Union’s old seat at the Security Council.
The apparently obscure reference, made even more arcane by the fact that everyone knows there are no memos, may have seemed to many observers an odd choice given the stakes of the moment, but it opened a diplomatic front in the war between Russia and Ukraine that may have some sting.
Article 23 of the U.N. Charter lists the members of the Security Council. It says that France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China are its five permanent members. Two of the five are problematic. The Republic of China is the name of the government of Taiwan, a distinct entity from the People’s Republic of China, which has operated in the council since 1971. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 and its territory and people broke into 15 “new” countries.
