TIRANA, Sept. 23, 2022 – Albania was among U.N. Security Council members on Thursday to condemn Russia for escalating its war in Ukraine.
Representing Albania at the U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday, Foreign Minister Olta Xhacka said the international community must continue to help Ukraine and hold Russia accountable.
“We reiterate that Russia’s flagrant attempt to annex parts of Ukraine is not only a violation of international law. It is also a reflection of a totalitarian mindset reminiscent of the dark days of fascism and Stalinism,” Xhacka said.
Albania currently holds its first ever two-year term as a non-permanent member the U.N. Security Council. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is also in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly’s gathering, the first in full schedule since the pandemic started more than two years ago.
Albania and its NATO allies also criticized the mobilization of more troops and President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons.
“Every council member should send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a special session of the council’s foreign ministers held on the sidelines of the General Assembly’s annual gathering.
Putin announced Wednesday that he is calling up 300,000 more troops for his “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“This is a war of annexation. A war of conquest,” Britain’s new Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said, “to which President Putin now wants to send even more of Russia’s young men and women, making peace even less likely.”
The Russian president has also announced plans to hold referenda in four occupied parts of Ukraine in an apparent attempt to annex them.
“It is an attempt to change internationally recognized borders by use of force — and no sham referendums can change that basic fact,” Ireland’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister Simon Coveney said. “It cannot be allowed to stand.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council that the latest developments are “dangerous and disturbing.”
“The idea of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, has become a subject of debate,” he said. “This in itself is totally unacceptable.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not listen to the criticism of his counterparts, leaving his deputy and a junior ambassador to fill his seat during most of the three-hour meeting. He showed up only to deliver his remarks.
