UN, November 28. /TASS/. The League of Nations fell apart and was unable to prevent the World War II after the Soviet Union was excluded from it, Russia’s first deputy UN envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy said in response to Ukraine’s call to expel Russia from the United Nations.

"Yesterday UNSC [the UN Security Council] discussed blatant Ukrainian provocation in the Kerch Strait. [Ukraine’s Ambassador to UN Vladimir] Yelchenko appealed to the history of USSR expulsion from League of Nations. He forgot to mention that LN eventually became powerless and couldn’t prevent a new world war," Polyanskiy said.

"UN learned these lessons, avoided such mistakes and is a different type of organization. But now it faces existential risk through attacks on multilateralism and efforts to ignore UN Founding states’ position on key issues of international security and world order," he went on.

The UN Security Council convened for an emergency meeting on Monday following the recent incident in the Kerch Strait, connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. During the meeting, Yelchenko compared the incident to the November 26, 1939 incident on the Soviet-Finnish border, which led to "a war that led to the Soviet Union’s expulsion from the League of Nations."

On November 25, three warships of the Ukrainian Navy violated the rules of passage through Russia's territorial waters while en route from the Black Sea to the Azov Sea. The Russian side had to use weapons to compel the ships to stop. Three Ukrainian servicemen were lightly wounded. They received medical assistance. The ships were detained and escorted to the port of Kerch. A criminal case was initiated on border violation charges.

The Russian side described the incident as a provocation. Ukrainian authorities declared martial law in ten regions. The EU and NATO called for de-escalation of the situation.