This October, as the world will commemorate the 75th United Nations Day anniversary which marks the entry of the UN Charter into force, it is worth noting the number of challenges it faces daily - sometimes from its own members.
Since its adoption in 1945, the UN has been tackling new threats such as poverty, terrorism, infectious diseases, including the novel coronavirus pandemic, while supporting, preserving, and strengthening peace and security. Since early 2020, Russia - through their leader Vladimir Putin has been trying under any pretext to gather the leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council for a new summit to “stabilize” the international situation, allegedly calling this meeting «Yalta-2».
To understand his intention, we need to look a few years back. After the imposition of several sanctions, Russia found itself somewhat isolated from the civilized world community. The US only has imposed sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, US election interference, other malicious cyber activities, human rights abuses. This did not bring more confidence to the country and its leader who struggles to feed his great-power addiction.
At the end of the day, Putin has nothing left but to try to organize “Yalta-2” to establish a new world order and abandon the old one, agreed in the post-war period. Putin wants another “zeroing” of his violations of international law and a change in the mechanisms of restraint and punishment of the offending countries. Simply put, the “new Yalta” agreement is something that Putin wants the West to accept to cement his place in history books.
Now, during the period of “hybrid wars,” Putin is making all possible attempts to destabilize the world order. He even wrote an article for the May 9 Victory Day parade in which he threatened to unleash the world war. In his publication, the Russian president called on the world leaders of the permanent members of the UN Security Council to meet to review the system of world law and order. He also noted that the UN follows the path of the League of Nations and, accordingly, the system of world order is not as effective as it was after the war. Besides, in his video speech at the 75th-anniversary session of the UN General Assembly, Vladimir Putin once again stressed the need to convene the summit of the five permanent member states to discuss the world security structure.
He never mentioned, however, that Russia is a chronic offender and also an aggressor that constantly violates international law and tries to break the system of the existing world order.
According to Putin, the New Yalta deal in its current form must include the following:
• Repeal of all sanctions against Russian oligarchs and their companies;
• Recognition of Crimea as Russian territory;
• Total freeze on expansion of NATO. No membership for Sweden, Finland, Ukraine or Georgia;
• No NATO bases in the Baltics, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria;
• Removal of the American anti-ballistic bases in Central Europe;
• Guarantees of unhindered land connection through Lithuania between the Russian heartland and the exclave of Kaliningrad;
• Recognition of Russia’s right to permanent military presence in the Mediterranean (through bases in Syria and possibly in Libya or other places).
It's clear what Putin wants. His vision of «Yalta-2» is an agreement in which Russia regains an old-fashioned sphere of influence, keeping the former Soviet Republics on a short leash without the US or NATO interference, and perhaps extending a version of that power over former Eastern European satellites.
In short, he wants the US and other western democracies to turn a blind eye to many of their values, commitments, and international law.
Even though Putin wants to adopt a new system of world order, in today's world, the creation of Yalta-2 is simply impossible. There is the UN Charter, under which the countries have signed. Accordingly, all decisions of an appropriate nature should be made following the current UN Charter.
For Russia, the convening of leaders of permanent members of the Security Council is a purely political and propaganda step. Even if nothing is adopted at this summit, Putin will fulfill the plan minimum: He will try to break through the isolation in the international arena in this way (rather, to demonstrate the semblance of such a breakthrough through the very fact of the meeting) in order to legitimize his foreign and domestic policies, including the “zeroing” of his presidential terms.
