In a win for Ukraine on the third an­niver­sary of Rus­sia’s in­va­sion, the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Mon­day re­fused to ap­prove a U.S.-backed res­o­lu­tion that urged an end to the war with­out men­tion­ing Moscow’s ag­gres­sion. In­stead, it ap­proved a Eu­ro­pean-backed Ukrain­ian res­o­lu­tion de­mand­ing Rus­sia im­me­di­ate­ly with­draw its forces, which the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion op­posed.

It was a set­back for the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in the 193-mem­ber world body, whose res­o­lu­tions are not legal­ly bind­ing but are seen as a barom­e­ter of world opin­ion. But it al­so showed some di­min­ished sup­port for Ukraine, whose res­o­lu­tion passed 93-18, with 65 ab­sten­tions. That’s low­er than pre­vi­ous votes, which saw more than 140 na­tions con­demn Rus­sia’s ag­gres­sion and de­mand its im­me­di­ate with­draw­al.

The Unit­ed States had tried to pres­sure the Ukraini­ans to with­draw their res­o­lu­tion in fa­vor of its pro­pos­al, in­clud­ing a last-minute ap­peal by U.S. deputy am­bas­sador Dorothy Shea. Ukraine re­fused, and the as­sem­bly ap­proved three Eu­ro­pean-pro­posed amend­ments adding lan­guage to the U.S. pro­pos­al mak­ing clear that Rus­sia in­vad­ed its small­er neigh­bor in vi­o­la­tion of the U.N. Char­ter.

The vote on the amend­ed U.S. res­o­lu­tion was 93-8 with 73 ab­sten­tions, with Ukraine vot­ing “yes,” the U.S. ab­stain­ing and Rus­sia vot­ing “no.”

Ukrain­ian Deputy For­eign Min­is­ter Mar­i­ana Bet­sa said her coun­try is ex­er­cis­ing its “in­her­ent right to self-de­fense” fol­low­ing Rus­sia’s in­va­sion, which vi­o­lates the U.N. Char­ter’s re­quire­ment that coun­tries re­spect the sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty of oth­er na­tions.

“As we mark three years of this dev­as­ta­tion — Rus­sia’s full in­va­sion against Ukraine — we call on all na­tions to stand firm and to take … the side of the Char­ter, the side of hu­man­i­ty and the side of just and last­ing peace, peace through strength,” she said. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has of­ten stat­ed his com­mit­ment to bring­ing “peace through strength.”

U.S. en­voy Shea, mean­while, said mul­ti­ple pre­vi­ous U.N. res­o­lu­tions con­demn­ing Rus­sia and de­mand­ing the with­draw­al of Russ­ian troops “have failed to stop the war,” which “has now dragged on for far too long and at far too ter­ri­ble a cost to the peo­ple in Ukraine and Rus­sia and be­yond.”

“What we need is a res­o­lu­tion mark­ing the com­mit­ment from all U.N. mem­ber states to bring a durable end to the war,” Shea said.

The du­el­ing res­o­lu­tions re­flect the ten­sions that have emerged be­tween the U.S. and Ukraine af­ter Trump sud­den­ly opened ne­go­ti­a­tions with Rus­sia in a bid to quick­ly re­solve the con­flict. They al­so un­der­score the strain in the transat­lantic al­liance over the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ex­tra­or­di­nary turn­around on en­gage­ment with Moscow. Eu­ro­pean lead­ers were dis­mayed that they and Ukraine were left out of pre­lim­i­nary talks last week, and the as­sem­bly met as Trump was host­ing French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron in Wash­ing­ton..

In es­ca­lat­ing rhetoric, Trump has called Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy a “dic­ta­tor,” false­ly ac­cused Kyiv of start­ing the war and warned that he “bet­ter move fast” to ne­go­ti­ate an end to the con­flict or risk not hav­ing a na­tion to lead. Ze­len­skyy re­spond­ed by say­ing Trump was liv­ing in a Russ­ian-made “dis­in­for­ma­tion space.”

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion then not on­ly de­clined to en­dorse Ukraine’s U.N. res­o­lu­tion, but at the last minute pro­posed its own com­pet­ing res­o­lu­tion.

The U.S. al­so wants a vote on its pro­pos­al in the more pow­er­ful U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, where res­o­lu­tions are legal­ly bind­ing and it has ve­to pow­er along with Rus­sia, Chi­na, Britain and France. Chi­na, which holds the coun­cil pres­i­den­cy this month, has sched­uled it for Mon­day af­ter­noon.

A U.S. of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause the coun­cil had not yet tak­en up the U.S. res­o­lu­tion, said the Unit­ed States would ve­to any amend­ments by Rus­sia or the Eu­ro­peans.

The Gen­er­al As­sem­bly has be­come the most im­por­tant U.N. body on Ukraine be­cause the 15-mem­ber Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, which is charged with main­tain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty, has been par­a­lyzed by Rus­sia’s ve­to pow­er.

Since Rus­sia forces stormed across the bor­der on Feb. 24, 2022, the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly has ap­proved half a dozen res­o­lu­tions that have con­demned the in­va­sion and de­mand­ed the im­me­di­ate pull­out of Russ­ian troops.

The very brief orig­i­nal U.S. res­o­lu­tion ac­knowl­edges “the trag­ic loss of life through­out the Rus­sia-Ukraine con­flict” and im­plores “a swift end to the con­flict and fur­ther urges a last­ing peace be­tween Ukraine and Rus­sia.” It nev­er men­tions Moscow’s in­va­sion.

France’s U.N. am­bas­sador, Nico­las De Riv­iere, on be­half of more than 20 Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, pro­posed the three amend­ments, which he said “re­flect the re­al sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine — that of a war of ag­gres­sion led by Rus­sia against its neigh­bor.”

The first re­places “Rus­sia-Ukraine con­flict” with “full-scale in­va­sion of Ukraine by the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.” The sec­ond reaf­firms the as­sem­bly’s com­mit­ment to Ukraine’s sov­er­eign­ty, in­de­pen­dence, uni­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty with­in its in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized bor­ders. The third calls for a just, last­ing and com­pre­hen­sive peace in Ukraine that re­spects the U.N. Char­ter and the prin­ci­ples of sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty.

Rus­sia’s U.N. am­bas­sador, Vass­i­ly Neben­zia, told re­porters last week that the orig­i­nal U.S. res­o­lu­tion was “a good move.”

He pro­posed an amend­ment that would add the phrase “in­clud­ing by ad­dress­ing its root caus­es” so the fi­nal line of the U.S. res­o­lu­tion would read, “im­plores a swift end to the con­flict, in­clud­ing by ad­dress­ing its root caus­es, and fur­ther urges a last­ing peace be­tween Ukraine and Rus­sia.”

The Gen­er­al As­sem­bly al­so ap­proved that amend­ment Mon­day, but Rus­sia didn’t sup­port the amend­ed res­o­lu­tion be­cause it points a fin­ger clear­ly at Moscow for start­ing the war.

The Ukraine res­o­lu­tion refers to “the full-scale in­va­sion of Ukraine by the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion” and re­calls the need to im­ple­ment all pre­vi­ous as­sem­bly res­o­lu­tions “adopt­ed in re­sponse to the ag­gres­sion against Ukraine.”

It sin­gles out the as­sem­bly’s de­mand that Rus­sia “im­me­di­ate­ly, com­plete­ly and un­con­di­tion­al­ly with­draw all of its mil­i­tary forces from the ter­ri­to­ry of Ukraine with­in its in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized bor­ders.”

It stress­es that any in­volve­ment of North Ko­re­an troops fight­ing along­side Rus­sia’s forces “rais­es se­ri­ous con­cerns re­gard­ing fur­ther es­ca­la­tion of this con­flict.”

The res­o­lu­tion reaf­firms the as­sem­bly’s com­mit­ment to Ukraine’s sov­er­eign­ty and al­so “that no ter­ri­to­r­i­al ac­qui­si­tion re­sult­ing from the threat or use of force shall be rec­og­nized as le­gal.”

It calls for “a de-es­ca­la­tion, an ear­ly ces­sa­tion of hos­til­i­ties and a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of the war against Ukraine” and it re­it­er­ates “the ur­gent need to end the war this year.”

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS (AP)