11 Times Russian Leaders Condemned The Use Of Force Without U.N. Approval

On Saturday Russian President Vladimir Putin got approval from his senate to send combat troops to Ukraine. But he has made it very clear in the past that no war is justified without approval from the United Nations.

1. Putin on Iraq in 2003: "The use of force abroad, according to existing international laws, can only be sanctioned by the United Nations. This is the international law."

2. "I am convinced that it would be a grave error to be drawn into unilateral action, outside of international law," he said.

3. "Everything that is done without the UN Security Council's sanction cannot be recognized as fair or justified," Putin said in 2003.

4. Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich has said: "Any unilateral use of force without the authorisation of the U.N. Security Council, no matter how 'limited' it is, will be a clear violation of international law."

5. "Attempts to bypass the Security Council... create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention," Lukashevich said in August.

6. In April 2013, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that "it is unacceptable to use force in international relations."

7. "The use of force without the approval of the United Nations Security Council is a very grave violation of international law," Lavrov said in August.

8. Speaking in 2003, Lavrov said that a "U.S.-led invasion of Iraq" without U.N. support "would be a clear violation of international law."

9. In a New York Times opinion piece published this summer, Putin reinforced the importance of the United Nations: "No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage..."

10. "Force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council," he continued in his op-ed.

11. "We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos."

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