UN, November 16. /TASS/. The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly approved the Ukraine-led resolution which condemns alleged human rights violations in the region.
This year, the Kiev-backed document was supported by 67 delegations. 26 voted against, including Russia, Belarus, China, India, Serbia and South Africa. 87 nations abstained.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Gennady Kuzmin said ahead of the vote that the resolution’s authors were persistently trying to present the situation in Crimea as a military conflict, using the terms "annexation" and "occupation."
"Judging by this choice of words, Ukraine has been waging an uncompromising war against Russia for four years. Too bad Russia did not show up to that war. No one in Russia is going to be at war with the brotherly people of Ukraine. Their attempts to punish the people of Crimea for its choice of Russia will fail," he said.
"In strict compliance with the international law, the people of Crimea defended their right to live without Ukraine’s new national heroes - [Stepan] Bandera, [Roman] Shukhevich and other Nazi collaborators, they defended their right not to be buried alive under applause by national TV stations as was in Odessa in May 2, 2014, defended their right to be educated in their national language - be it Russian, Ukrainian or Crimean Tatar - and speak it freely," the Russian diplomat added.