Cornelia Navari discusses Russia’s position as a permanent member of the security council and Duncan G Naughten compares Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s appearance at the UN to Haile Selassie’s at the League of Nations in 1936
Re Simon Tisdall’s call for UN reform (The United Nations has the power to punish Putin. This is how it can be done, 6 April), the procedure for amending the charter is laid out in article 109, which requires a vote of two-thirds of the members of the general assembly and all the permanent members of the security council. The Soviet Union became a permanent member as one of the three superpowers that suborned Nazi Germany. Its seat was retained by Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed, partly in recognition that it was primus inter pares among the Soviet republics, but also because it was part of the deal for letting the other republics go so gracefully.
That it did so allowed Europe to realise a community of peace for the first time in a century. The point is not to kick Russia out, but to bring it back in.
Cornelia Navari
Visiting professor of international affairs, University of Buckingham
