Op-Ed by Rene van Nes, European Union Ambassador to Guyana
On 24 February 2022, exactly one year ago, we all woke up to a new world. On that day, in violation of all international laws and agreements, Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation launched a “special military operation”, in fact a full-scale aggression against Ukraine, a peaceful country, that neither had attacked nor threatened Russia.
After World War II, the world agreed on a mechanism to deal with conflicts between countries and the use of force. The only international body that can justify the use of force against a country is the United Nations Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member. The 15 members of the Security Council can decide that the use of force by a country in self-defence is acceptable or decide to send a mission to restore peace.
Russia has since been condemned by 143 countries in the UN General Assembly for its illegal annexations, while only five countries have supported it. In the critical period preceding the Russian invasion, European leaders made every effort to convince Vladimir Putin not to commit the irreparable. Instead, Russia started a war of unimaginable proportions.