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- Control burden: the Russian Foreign Ministry declared fatigue at the UN on the topic of Ukraine
Control burden: the Russian Foreign Ministry declared fatigue at the UN on the topic of Ukraine
The UN is feeling tired of the Ukrainian issue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov told Izvestia. According to the diplomat, this is happening at key venues of the world organization, including the Security Council and the General Assembly. The widespread and unjustified promotion of this agenda only causes more and more misunderstanding in the UN. At the same time, the Ukrainian settlement is not actually moving. The expert community believes that a decrease in attention to Kiev at the UN is unlikely to spur Ukraine to seek more intensively ways to resolve the conflict.
Declining interest in Ukraine at the UN
The Ukrainian agenda at the UN is gradually fading into the background. The Russian Foreign Ministry states that the regular and unjustified discussion of this topic is causing increasing misunderstanding on the part of the international community.
— We feel the fatigue of the member states from the intrusively imposed Ukrainian theme. This is happening both in New York and at the General Assembly, the Security Council and other United Nations (UN) venues that deal with specific topics and have specific mandates. When Ukrainian topics are thrown in there for any reason, it causes more and more misunderstanding," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov told Izvestia.
According to the UN Secretariat, in 2022, the Security Council held 46 public meetings directly devoted to the conflict in Ukraine and its global consequences. At that time, this crisis became a central theme in the work of the Security Council, accounting for about one in six public meetings of the body.
Now the situation has changed. In 2025, the aggravation of the situation in the Middle East attracted the main attention and the largest number of meetings of the UN Security Council. On the topic of Ukraine, meetings were held less frequently, mostly on a scheduled basis (about once or twice a month) or in the format of emergency briefings after major flare—ups. Thus, the total number of meetings on the Ukrainian track was around 20-25 meetings. The UN Department of Political and Peace-building Affairs has calculated: Almost 75% of all country and regional Security Council meetings in 2025 were held in the Middle East and Africa.
A similar situation is observed in the General Assembly. Last year, the UN General Assembly held only three plenary meetings directly devoted to the Ukrainian conflict, while in 2022 there were 15 of them. And if earlier the topic of Ukraine was dominant, now the main focus is on the Middle East settlement.
The UN itself is talking about fatigue from the Ukrainian crisis. Last year, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Amy Pope bluntly stated that it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep governments' attention on financing Ukrainian programs against the backdrop of new global crises. In addition, IOM and other UN agencies have faced a lack of U.S. assistance. After returning to the White House, Donald Trump, who advocates ending the Ukrainian conflict, significantly reduced the allocation of funds to UN humanitarian programs, which affected refugees from Ukraine, among others.
At the same time, representatives of the countries of the Global South have repeatedly opposed the fact that the eurocentric Ukrainian conflict has completely overshadowed the problems of the rest of the world. Back in 2022, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar called on Europe to stop ignoring crises in other regions.
"The sentiments in the United Nations, whatever they may be, are a reflection of the sentiments of the world community,— former UN Deputy Secretary General Sergei Ordzhonikidze told Izvestia. — If in the beginning the Ukrainian issue was the most widely promoted (at the initiative of the West), now there is nothing to promote.
Alexey Vagin, a political scientist and lecturer at the Higher School of Economics, emphasizes that the UN's support is mainly declarative.
— All the resolutions adopted within the framework of it do not play an important role if they have not been adopted by the UN Security Council. And there are permanent members who have the right of veto," he said.
How is the Ukrainian settlement moving?
Crisis fatigue is also being recorded in Ukraine. In particular, the country's permanent representative to the UN, Andrei Melnyk, previously stated that attention to the conflict is decreasing in the world organization, and he considers it his task to remind about it as often and loudly as possible.
Ukraine and the EU countries keep the issue of pressure on Russia at the UN through the regular initiation of anti-Russian resolutions in the General Assembly, as well as the holding of thematic meetings of the Security Council (the last meeting of the Security Council was held on May 19 at the initiative of Kiev). The Baltic states, Poland, France and Germany are the most active.
Andrei Kortunov, an expert at the Valdai Club, notes that Kiev uses the UN exclusively as an information and propaganda platform.
— Every year, the General Assembly raises this issue and adopts an anti-Russian resolution. Kiev and its partners are interested in ensuring that the coalition of Moscow's critics does not disintegrate, so they are very carefully counting how many countries voted for it," he told Izvestia.
The analyst, however, emphasizes that it is quite difficult to keep attention on one conflict, which has been going on for the fifth year, so the effectiveness of this work will inevitably decrease. At the same time, keeping the Ukrainian issue in the UN's focus will also depend on the personality of the Secretary-General, who will be elected by the end of 2026. For example, the current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has visited Ukraine three times since the beginning of his term.
Experts interviewed by Izvestia believe that a decrease in attention to the Ukrainian issue at the UN and other international venues is unlikely to be a strong incentive to find ways to resolve the conflict. Kiev does not consider the UN as an influential organization. In 2024, the media even wrote that Vladimir Zelensky refused to receive Guterres because he participated in the BRICS summit in Kazan. In addition, Ukraine continues to receive financial assistance from Western countries. In June, the European Union plans to send Kiev the first tranche of a loan worth €90 billion.
— For the leadership of Ukraine, the continuation of the conflict and concessions are things that directly exclude each other. The continuation of this crisis is beneficial simply as a guarantee of survival. Therefore, they will not make any concessions and, on the contrary, will use them to disrupt any peace agreement," said Bogdan Bezpalko, a political scientist and member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation.
However, it is possible that the fading of the topic in the public space may provoke a drop in public support for Kiev in the West. This can complicate the allocation of financial and military assistance.
Meanwhile, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, mediated by the United States, remain on pause. And although the situation may change (Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov announced a visit to Russia by Trump's special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the coming weeks), for now the United States is focused on resolving the conflict with Iran. Ukraine, on the other hand, resists territorial compromises. Russia has previously stated that it has not received any signals from the Kiev authorities that would indicate a willingness to move forward in the settlement process.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
