The topic of Chernobyl quarreled Minsk and Kiev at the UN, but the United States sided with Belarus

Delegations of Belarus and Ukraine argued at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on December 10 over two competing draft resolutions on the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. This is reported by the European media.

It is reported that both sides submitted their documents, and then tried to amend each other's projects. According to the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN, Andrei Melnyk, Belarus "has lost any moral right to initiate General Assembly resolutions related to the Chernobyl issue." Ukraine also demanded that its project be considered first.

In turn, the Belarusian side stressed that it had never given up the role of curator of the annual Chernobyl resolution. In its objection, Belarus stated that its document had been submitted earlier and violation of the order would become a "procedural manipulation" and lead to "legal nihilism." As a result, at the end of the voting (56 countries for, 17 against and 63 abstentions), the General Assembly decided to consider the Ukrainian resolution first.

After that, a Ukrainian project entitled "Strengthening international cooperation and coordinating efforts to study, mitigate and minimize the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster" was adopted. The resolution calls on States to support international cooperation in the field of accident response and link these efforts to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. The document also provides for holding a special meeting of the General Assembly on April 24, 2026 to mark the 40th anniversary of the disaster. 97 countries voted for it. 8 States spoke out against it. At the same time, the United States, China, Cuba, the DPRK, Nicaragua, Niger and Russia sided with Belarus. Another 39 abstained.

At the same time, before the adoption of the Ukrainian resolution, the amendment proposed by Belarus was considered. She proposed to change the Ukrainian-language spelling Chornobyl to transliterated from Russian Chernobyl, remove the mention of Ukraine in one of the paragraphs and delete several key points. This amendment was rejected: 16 votes in favor, 58 against, 61 abstained.

Later, after the adoption of the Ukrainian draft, the representative of Ukraine stated that in this case it was not necessary to consider the Belarusian resolution. Belarus and Russia opposed, but the vote supported the Ukrainian proposal: 52 countries in favor, 23 against, 60 abstained. As a result, the General Assembly did not discuss the Belarusian draft "Long-term consequences of the Chernobyl disaster" and the Ukrainian amendment proposed to it.