DIIS Policy Brief

The bear in the room

Russia's role in the UN Security Council - and what It means for the West

The Kremlin attaches great importance to its role in the United Nations (UN) Security Council. This provides an opening for Western countries to use the Council as an arena for diplomatic competition with Russia. At the same time, the body serves as a much-needed venue for discussion and crisis management at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Key findings

  • Russia’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council provides it with outsized influence and prestige in world affairs
  • Russia’s self-proclaimed role as defender of state sovereignty becomes increasingly difficult to sustain in the wake of Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine
  • Western countries should use the Security Council as a platform to denounce Russian double standards and hypocrisy regarding the non-intervention norm
  • For all its flaws, the Security Council remains an important venue for debate and crisis management in an era of increased geopolitical competition
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Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022 is a clear violation of the United Nations (UN) Charter’s Article 2(4), which prohibits the threat or use of force. In an emergency session of the UN General Assembly that took place on 2 March 2022, the overwhelming majority of states demanded an unconditional withdrawal of the Russian forces. The final vote was 141 in favour and five (Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, Syria and North Korea) in opposition of the resolution, with 35 abstentions.

Moreover, following reports about human rights violations committed by Russian forces in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council was suspended. Thus, Russia appears to be increasingly isolated within the organisation. And yet, Kremlin officials continue to highlight the central role of the UN for managing matters of international peace and security.

References to the importance of the world body are found in nearly every Russian strategy document and numerous official statements. In fact, in his war speech of 24 February 2022, President Putin explicitly referred to the provisions of the UN Charter’s Article 51 on self-defence. To be clear, there is little to support Russia’s legal justification for its assault on Ukraine. Still, it is striking that Putin felt compelled to cloak Russia’s attack in the language of the UN Charter.

Why Russia Loves the UN System

Several factors explain why Russia attaches, rhetorically at least, great importance to the UN system. First, Russia’s permanent position on the Security Council with a veto right (see Box 1) gives it a significant voice in international affairs that it may not be in a position to claim otherwise. Russia maintains the highest number of nuclear warheads in the world and is rich in natural resources.

However, in terms of economic wealth, technological prowess and human capital, it is in many ways declining. Moreover, Russia’s poor battlefield performance in Ukraine has raised critical questions about its conventional military capabilities. Thus, Russia’s permanent seat on the Security Council is perhaps the clearest embodiment of its great-power status. This is especially important from the Kremlin’s point of view, as most of Russia’s political and intellectual elite are deeply wedded to the notion that Russia must remain a great power.

Second, the UN system with the Security Council at its apex dovetails with Russia’s global order preferences. Since the mid-1990s, one of Moscow’s key foreign-policy priorities has been the restoration of some form of “concert-based multipolarity.” This means that global problems should be resolved collectively by a small number of mutually recognised, and at least notionally equal, great powers (including Russia). Kremlin officials contrast this with what they call an American-run hegemonic system.

Along this line, as former US diplomat Philip Remler points out, Russian policymakers make much of the distinction between law-based order, narrowly defined as the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions, and rules-based order. The latter, in the Kremlin’s view, refers to particularistic values and norms promoted by the West. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently asserted, “the rule-based international order” is “something the West has come up with to replace the UN Charter.”

The Security Council

Within the UN system, the Security Council has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The Council is composed of ten temporarily elected members and five permanent members: the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia.

The body’s resolutions – which are legally binding for UN member states – must be approved by two-thirds of the General Assembly and nine members of the Security Council. However, the five permanent members hold veto power and therefore can block any resolution.

Critics note that this often paralyses the Council, and more generally, that the body is outdated as it largely reflects the distribution of economic and military power at the end of World War II. Still, a large-scale reform of the Council has proved very difficult.

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Third, Russia uses its veto in the Security Council as a foreign policy tool to protect and promote the principle of state sovereignty, and its corollary, the rule of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Since taking the USSR’s place in January 1992, Russia has been the most frequent user of the veto in the Security Council, employing it 31 times.

An important exception to the rule was Russia’s abstention on Resolution 1973, which authorised the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians during the 2011 crisis. Subsequently, however, Russian politicians strongly criticised Western governments for having overstepped the resolution’s mandate to carry out a “political regime change” operation.

Moscow, in effect, has become the self-styled guardian of the Westphalian principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of states. No doubt, this is partly done for instrumental reasons – to protect the Putin regime and its geopolitical allies from outside interventions. But there is an ideological dimension to it as well.

Much of the Russian political and intellectual elite stresses the importance of respecting civilisational diversity in international affairs. The argument is that liberal democracy is not a universal principle; different civilizations have their own cultural and political traditions. This has struck a chord with many statespeople in the global South, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia.

Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of Russia speaks during Security Council briefing by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at UN Headquarters. Photo: Lev Radin/Shutterstock
Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of Russia speaks during Security Council briefing by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at UN Headquarters. Photo: Lev Radin/Shutterstock

Russian Double Standards

While Western powers at times take a selective and instrumental approach to international law, so does Russia. In particular, Russia has frequently violated the sovereignty of other post-Soviet states to maintain a hegemonic position in its self-declared “sphere of privileged interests.” This has involved various forms of political and economic pressure and, if need be, direct military interventions. This stands at odds with Moscow’s oft-stated commitment to the principles of non-interference and state sovereignty.

Moreover, Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022 constitutes an unusually clear-cut violation of fundamental UN Charter principles. Russia’s policy towards the UN system is thus marked by two contradictory elements. On the one hand, Kremlin officials want to keep the UN, and the Security Council in particular, at the centre of global governance in the field of peace and security. On the other hand, Russia’s own actions in recent years contribute to the erosion of the Council’s authority and credibility.

Why the UN Security Council Still Matters

Russia’s war against Ukraine, no matter when and how it ends, has once again exposed the weakness of the UN system. Russia predictably used its veto power to block a Security Council resolution that demanded the Kremlin to terminate the war. The failure of the Council to prevent, stop, or even condemn Russia’s attack has raised questions about the relevance of this international body. Critics claim that it has become an inefficient talking shop. This charge is in many ways correct but misses the mark.

The Council remains a valuable forum for regular meetings of statespeople from different countries. This is especially important at a time when Russia and the West are again headed for an era marked by intense politico-military competition, distrust and tensions. What makes the current period of geopolitical turbulence especially worrisome is that, unlike during much of the Cold War, there are few consultation mechanisms. Dialogue, even at the highest levels, is almost non-existent.

There are few avenues for regular communication, and hence an increased risk for accidents, miscalculations and escalation. In the present atmosphere of increased suspicion and mistrust, the Security Council is one of the few remaining venues for Russian and Western policymakers to meet on a regular basis and discuss disagreements. Whether this will contribute to resolve the ongoing war in Ukraine in the near future is questionable, but at least it can contribute to reduce the risk of misunderstandings and misperceptions in East-West relations.

At the same time, European countries – including Denmark – should not be coy in taking advantage of the fact that Russia attaches such high importance to the body. European diplomats should continue using the Council as a platform for naming and shaming Russia’s utter disregard of UN Charter principles.

By extension, European diplomats could consider using the Council more actively as a venue to denounce the Kremlin’s hypocrisy of selectively applying the sovereignty principle, and more generally, call into question Russia’s self-image as a guardian of the non-intervention norm. The aim would be to maximise Russia’s reputational damage and expose the contradictions between its rhetoric and actions on issues of war and peace. For all its built-in limits, the Security Council remains an important platform for negotiations – and an arena for competition – in world politics.

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The bear in the room
Russia's role in the UN Security Council - and what It means for the West