KYIV: Ukraine on Monday called for Russia to be removed from the United Nations, where Moscow can veto any resolution as a permanent member of the Security Council.
鈥淯kraine calls on the member states of the UN... to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole,鈥� the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement said that Russia 鈥渋llegally occupies the seat of the USSR in the UN Security Council鈥� since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
鈥淔rom a legal and political point of view, there can be only one conclusion: Russia is an usurper of the Soviet Union鈥檚 seat in the UN Security Council,鈥� the ministry added.
鈥淭hree decades of its illegal presence in the UN have been marked by wars and seizures of other countries鈥� territories,鈥� the statement said.
The five permanent members of the 15-seat UN Security Council have veto power over UN resolutions.