China and India vote for UN resolution with a reference to Russia's 'aggression' against Ukraine

In a surprising diplomatic move, China and India, two countries that have carefully avoided condemning Moscow for launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine despite repeated pleas from Western allies, have voted in favour of a United Nations resolution that explicitly acknowledges "the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine."

The reference is found in just one paragraph of a broader resolution that calls for closer cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based human rights organisation.

The text, promoted by a wide group of European countries, together with Canada and the United States, received 122 votes in favour and 18 abstentions.

China and India, which have consistently abstained from UN resolutions focused on the Ukraine war that openly condemned Russia, voted in favour of the whole text, as did Kazakhstan, Armenia and Brazil.

Only five countries opposed the resolution: Russia, Belarus, Syria, Nicaragua and North Korea.

The vote, which took place last week, initially went unnoticed due to the resolution's largely anodyne content. But some observers were sharp enough to spot the blink-and-you-miss-it reference to the Ukraine war inserted in the ninth paragraph of the preamble, which reads as follows:

"Recognizing also that the unprecedented challenges now facing Europe following the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and against Georgia prior to that, and the cessation of the membership of the Russian Federation in the Council of Europe, (we) call for strengthened cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe."

Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, celebrated the vote on his Twitter account and the endorsement