Memory Wars at the United Nations After Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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Collective memory, foreign policy, and international law have been intertwined in diplomatic debates at the United Nations over the Russia-Ukraine war. Since February 2022, several contested votes in the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, and before other international bodies have revealed varying degrees of support for Ukraine and/or acquiescence to Russia’s actions. Whereas 143 states voted in favor of an October 2022 resolution condemning Russia’s purported annexation of four Ukrainian regions, initiatives to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council (April 2022) or pay reparations to Ukraine (November 2022) received less support.
Drawing on governments’ official statements, this piece argues that collective memories of major historical events such as World War II and the Cold War, as well as of broad periods of empire and colonialism, have shaped states’ responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including on international legal questions like aggression, accountability, and reparations. Looking at the different ways in which memory has shaped diplomacy before the UN General Assembly and Security Council illustrates the importance of moving beyond simplified depictions of the world, often framed along a binary “Global North versus Global South” or “the West versus the Rest” axis, to understand how interpretations of the past influence states’ positions on issues of global concern such as armed conflicts, climate change, or reparations.
World War II
In diplomatic debates since 2022, Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly invoked competing memories of World War II before the UN. For instance, Sergei Kysylytsa, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, speaking shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion, argued that “very clear parallels could be drawn with the beginning of the Second World War” and that “Russia’s course of action is very similar to what its spiritual mentors from the Third Reich employed on Ukrainian land 80 years ago.” Russia has responded in kind, with Vitali Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the UN, arguing before the same UN emergency session that “we heard the Ukrainian representative speak of Nazism, but he was shamefully silent about the rampant neo-Nazism in Ukraine itself, the outrageous neo-Nazi and nationalist radical organizations, the torchlit processions and the glorification of Hitler’s accomplices.”
The centrality of World War II to Ukraine’s and Russia’s foreign policies has received considerable attention from scholars, including in post-2022 debates over the establishment of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression that could resemble certain features of the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal. Less obvious is that many other states have also invoked memories of World War II to justify their legal and policy positions before the UN. In condemning Russia’s invasion, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, drew a direct link before the UN General Assembly between “the end of the Second World War” and the UN’s founding “76 years ago to maintain peace and security” and “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war[.]” Christian Wenaweser, Liechtenstein’s ambassador to the UN, described the invasion as an “attack on the collective memory and history that underpins our contemporary international system anchored in the rule of law[,]” adding that Russia’s “claims that it is preventing genocide and conducting denazification are not only preposterous, they are deeply offensive to the countless real victims of genocide.”
In a similar vein, some Global South countries, for instance, Colombia, Guatemala, South Africa, Belize, and Gabon, have referenced World War II in their official statements to warn of the risks that the Russia-Ukraine war poses for the global legal order, including the UN Charter. In one poignant statement, Palau’s representative to the UN invoked the rise of Nazi Germany to warn states against a passive attitude toward Russian behavior:
While reflecting on the dangers of inaction in the Second World War, Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor, wrote, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.” Palau stands with Ukraine.
Cold War
The Cold War has served as another mnemonic reference point for states at the UN. Somewhat surprisingly, despite the Cold War’s significance for countries from the former Soviet sphere of influence, only a few European states have drawn parallels between the Cold War and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Notable examples include Ukraine and Slovakia, which both referenced the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, including the Soviet Union’s infamous “Brezhnev Doctrine” that justified Soviet military intervention in Eastern Europe to protect socialist regimes. Serving as an elected non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2022, Albania also referred to the failure of Soviet armies to achieve their objectives in the Cold War.
However, on the whole, Cold War analogies have been more prevalent among non-Western states. In many statements before the UN General Assembly in 2022 and 2023, China has warned against a “Cold War mentality” and the potential risk of a “confrontation between blocs of states.” In September 2022, Macky Sall, then-president of Senegal and chair of the African Union, cautioned the General Assembly about the risks of “a new Cold War.” Moreover, several non-Western countries, such as Kenya, Brazil, Venezuela, and Syria, have echoed Russia’s arguments that the invasion may have been a reaction to NATO’s post-Cold War “expansion” into Eastern Europe (see here for the contested semantics of NATO “expansion” instead of “enlargement”), with some states placing varying degrees of blame on Ukraine, the West, NATO, and the United States for failing to adequately address Russia’s “legitimate security concerns.”
Relatively few European states have directly countered these arguments at the UN. Exceptions include the Czech Republic, which denied that NATO poses a threat to Russia, and the European Union, which invoked Russia’s failure to uphold the Budapest Memorandum, a post-Cold War agreement aimed at providing security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for its voluntary denuclearization. While Ukraine has also, on occasion, recalled Cold War critiques of the Soviet Union, including by non-Western states such as Jordan, the diplomatic debates before the UN reveal very different memories of the Cold War among different groups of states, with greater disagreement about how to interpret this period in history and its relevance for the Russia-Ukraine war.
Imperialism and Colonialism
In addition to World War II and the Cold War, contrasting invocations of imperialism and colonialism have served as another important mnemonic flashpoint in diplomatic debates. Ukraine in particular has sought to rally states to its cause by casting Russia’s behavior in the language of colonialism. For instance, in a speech before the UN General Assembly in April 2022, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy argued:
Why has Russia come to Ukraine? ... It is because the Russian leadership feels like the colonizers of ancient times. They need our wealth, our people. The Russians have already deported hundreds of thousands of our citizens to their country. They have abducted more than 2,000 children, and they continue to do so. Russia wants to turn Ukrainians into silent slaves. The Russian military is openly looting the cities and villages that they have captured.
Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have also sought to invoke memories of imperialism and figures like Nelson Mandela to build support with African and Latin American audiences.
Ukraine’s allies have reciprocated these analogies to different degrees. For instance, Canada has condemned Russia’s actions as a form of “modern-day colonialism” and compared present-day Russia with the 19th-century Russian Empire. French President Emmanuel Macron has also used the language of empire and colonialism, including in a prominent speech before the UN General Assembly in September 2022, where he accused those silent in the face of Russia’s invasion of complicity in a “new imperialism.” Likewise, Spain, Liechtenstein, and the United States have in their diplomatic statements framed the invasion as a continuation of Russia’s imperial ambitions. Notably, while some East-Central European states, for instance, Albania, Croatia and Estonia, have cast their experiences of past subjugation to Russia in the language of imperialism and colonialism, others have not used such language in diplomatic forums.
Non-Western states have also used the language of imperialism and colonialism, albeit in different ways. Some Global South countries have cast Russia’s invasion as a “war of hegemony” (Ghana and Gabon), “delusional nostalgia of an imperial past” (Colombia), “neo-imperial transgression” (Costa Rica), and driven by “an imperialist agenda” (Marshall Islands). In a widely panned speech, Martin Kimani, the Kenyan representative to the UN, argued before the Security Council:
Kenya is gravely concerned by the announcement made by the Russian Federation to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine as independent States …. This situation echoes our own history. Kenya and almost every African country were birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris and Lisbon with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart …. We believe that all States formed from empires that have collapsed or retreated have many peoples in them yearning for integration with peoples in neighbouring States.
By contrast, Russia and some non-Western states have appealed to similar language and analogies to justify or downplay the invasion. As part of a wider anti-Western narrative, some Russian politicians have positioned themselves as supporters of anti-colonial movements and criticized Western powers for their colonial histories, notably in Africa. For instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin has positioned Russia against “racist” Western leaders, while Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, suggested during a visit to Mali in 2022 that Russia had “not stained itself” with the crimes of colonialism.
While such claims ignore Russian imperial history, echoes of these arguments have featured in diplomatic debates. Notably, investigations into allegations of Russian atrocities in Ukraine or a proposed reparations mechanism for Ukraine have faced opposition on these grounds. At the Human Rights Council in March 2022, Cuba and Venezuela declined to support atrocity investigations in Ukraine, echoing Russia’s argument that Western powers engage in “human rights colonialism.” In November 2022, dozens of countries, including Eritrea, Angola, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Palestine, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe, abstained or voted against a Ukraine-specific reparations mechanism, invoking their dissatisfaction with the lack of reparations for Western exploitation and colonialism. Even countries like Kenya, which voted for the reparations mechanism, raised similar critiques, underscoring many non-Western states’ perspective that reparations for Ukraine should be understood within a broader frame of historical injustice, including Western colonialism, slavery, and unauthorized interventions. In the specific case of reparations, allegations of Western double standards rooted in Global South states’ shared memories of unequal treatment overshadowed an otherwise uncontroversial proposal for international legal accountability.
To be sure, non-Western states’ denunciations of Western violations of international law, and associated claims of whataboutism and double standards, have varied markedly at the UN since 2022. In a resolution condemning Russia’s annexations of four Ukrainian regions in October 2022, few states made accusations of double standards that have otherwise plagued UN diplomacy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, the November 2022 debate on a reparations mechanism for Ukraine epitomizes the complex and diverse ways in which collective memories of the past have shaped the global responses to the Russia-Ukraine war. Rather than a straightforward conversation about accountability for Russia’s violations of international law, unresolved questions about some developing nations’ expectations of redress for past wrongs and the legacies of colonialism influenced global divisions over how to address the war.
Conclusion
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has revealed contested memories of oppression in different parts of the world. For Ukrainians and people from East-Central Europe, the full-scale invasion is a brutal reminder of Russia’s imperial past led by a revanchist hegemon that never came to terms with the collapse of the 20th century’s “last empire.” However, some non-Western actors, including in the Global South, sometimes still see Russian actions on the global stage through an anti-imperialist and anti-colonial lens, echoing the Soviet Union’s struggle against Western powers during the Cold War. In highlighting how states have explained and justified their divided positions on the Russian invasion, this piece underscores the need to better understand how contested memories influence international law-making before multilateral institutions.
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