Russia vetoes UN Resolution demanding end of bombing in Aleppo

Russia vetoed a UN resolution demanding an immediate end to the bombing campaign being carried out by Russia, prolonging the division and paralysis of the UN Security Council in the face of Syria’s humanitarian disaster.

The UN resolution drafted by France called for end to aerial bombardment and overflights in rebel-held areas of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian regime aircraft. The resolution also called for a resumed ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian supplies to besieged population. China abstained, further isolating Russia on the issue, along with Angola. Venezuela was the only other country to vote with Russia against the resolution.

A rival measure put forward by Russia, which called for a ceasefire but made no mention of a halt to the airstrikes, was rejected after failing to get nine votes from the 15-member council.

It was the fifth time Moscow used its veto to block UN action to end the five-year war in Syria, which has claimed 300,000 lives.

Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current rotating council president, called the vote a “waste of time” and “inadmissible”, claiming the Security Council met knowing that neither resolution would be adopted.  

The bitter divisions in the council, which faces a high and rapidly rising death toll in eastern Aleppo, produced a heated but fruitless debate that saw some of the normal diplomatic niceties abandoned.

“Normally I begin my statement with, ‘Thank you Mr President’,” Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN, said at the start of his remarks. “I cannot do this today.”

“This council cannot stand by while such misery is meted out on the people of Aleppo. And yet, thanks to you, Mr President, that is exactly what we are doing,” Rycroft told the council. “Thanks to your actions today, Syrians will continue to lose their lives in Aleppo and beyond to Russian and Syrian bombing. Please stop now.”

The votes reflected the deep divisions in the UN's most powerful body which is charged with ensuring international peace and security but has failed to take action to end the five-year Syrian conflict which has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced millions.

As the council meeting got underway, the Syrian regime pushed its assault on rebel-held areas of Aleppo, where 125,000 people are living under siege and facing almost daily bombing.

Civilians are suffering through daily bombing, including by bunker-buster and incendiary weapons, and through starvation, as limited supplies run out and aid convoys are blocked from the city. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, on Friday called for a war crimes investigation of the Russian and Syrian regime bombing.

According to diplomats, the UN envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told the security council that the presence of roughly 1,000 Nusra fighters was being used as a pretext for the bombing of 275,000 people and had offered to personally escort the militant group out of the city to guarantee their safe passage.

At the present rate of bombardment of eastern Aleppo, De Mistura said the city would be totally destroyed by December. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called it “worse than a slaughterhouse”.