Summary
It’s just past 11pm in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:
UN member states voted Friday to make an exception to allow Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address next week’s General Assembly by video, despite Russian opposition. Of the 193 member states, 101 voted in favor of allowing Zelenskiy to “present a pre-recorded statement” instead of in-person as usually required. Seven members voted against the proposal, including Russia. Nineteen states abstained.
Ninety-nine percent of exhumed bodies had signs of violent death, Ukraine’s regional administration head said Friday of the mass burial site discovered after Kyiv’s forces recaptured the east Ukrainian town of Izium. “Among the bodies that were exhumed today, 99 percent showed signs of violent death,” Oleg Synegubov, head of Kharkiv regional administration, said on social media.
The European Union is “deeply shocked” at the discovery by Ukrainian officials of mass graves in the recaptured city of Izium, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Friday. “The European Union is deeply shocked by mass graves discovered by Ukrainian authorities,...” said Borrell. “We condemn these atrocities in the strongest possible terms.
Ukrainian armed forces have hit four areas with Russian troops, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The armed forces also targeted an unloading station, in turn preventing Russian forces from deploying additional reserves.
UN member states voted Friday to make an exception to allow Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address next week’s General Assembly by video, despite Russian opposition.
Of the 193 member states, 101 voted in favor of allowing Zelenskiy to “present a pre-recorded statement” instead of in-person as usually required. Seven members voted against the proposal, including Russia. Nineteen states abstained.
From Tuesday, approximately 150 world leaders will address the General Assembly in New York. World leaders were allowed to speak by video in 2020 and in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but this year the event has gone back to in-person and only those present can speak.
More than 50 states, including the United States, France, South Korea and Turkey, submitted a proposal to make an exception for Zelenskiy.
The text highlighted situations in which leaders “cannot participate in person in the meetings of the General Assembly for reasons beyond their control owing to ongoing foreign invasion, aggression, military hostilities.”
Those in favor decided “that Ukraine may submit a pre-recorded statement of its Head of State” that will be played during the general debate. The decision noted, however, that the exception was not setting a precedent for future debates.
An amendment introduced by Russia-ally Belarus that would have allowed all leaders prevented from coming to New York in person to send a pre-recorded message was rejected by 67 votes against, 23 for, and 27 abstentions.
Ukraine’s address is scheduled for the afternoon of September 21, but changes are likely due to many leaders traveling to London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday.
