Ukraine calls on the UN member states to restore the application of the Charter in the issue of the legitimacy of Russia's stay in the UN, deprive Russia of the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council and expel it from the UN as a whole, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry (MFA) has said.

"The question of Russia's fate in the United Nations should be resolved in the general context of its responsibility for gross violations of the norms and principles of international law as well as for crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine, in particular, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the crime of genocide," the MFA said in the statement.

The Foreign Ministry said it is only a matter of time before Russia's actions discredit and destroy the entire UN system.

"Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN to resume the application of the UN Charter in the context of the legitimacy of the Russian Federation's presence in the UN, to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole," the ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry assumed that the removal of the Russian Federation from the UN Security Council will not have retroactive effect on the previously adopted decisions of this organ and will not entail the annulment or revision of the resolutions of the Security Council adopted so far..

"We believe that, guided by the principle of equality of UN members, the Russian Federation should follow the same international legal path for admission to membership in the Organization as other countries did. At the same time, the return of the Russian Federation to the UN in the future can be considered only if it complies with the criteria for UN membership," the MFA said in the statement.

The department also said compliance with the procedure defined by the UN Charter will restore the right of each member state to vote in the UN General Assembly whether to admit the Russian Federation to the United Nations or not — a statutory right they were deprived of 31 years ago.

"Only after Russia fulfils the conditions for membership in the Organization, contained in paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the UN Charter, could Russia be admitted to membership by a decision of the UN General Assembly upon the recommendation of the UN Security Council, as provided for in paragraph 2 of Article 4 of the UN Charter," the MFA said.

Thus, Ukraine initiates a complex process aimed at achieving the goals of this statement, and in this context is ready to cooperate with other countries to jointly protect the UN Charter and international law from the destructive influence of the Russian Federation.

According to the statement, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 left unresolved the issue of international rights and obligations of the USSR.

"From the point of view of international law, the issue of the status of a UN member state and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which the Russian Federation enjoys, remains unsettled. Russia falsely considers the issue settled, referring to the fact that since December 24, 1991, and publicly – since December 31, 1991, a country name plate for the Russian Federation appeared in the UN Security Council. In fact, according to the UN Charter, there has never been legitimate grounds for this," the Foreign Ministry said.

Thus, Russia took over the seat of a permanent member of the UN Security Council bypassing the procedures defined by the UN Charter.

The agency also said the current UN Charter does not contain the words "Russian Federation." These words are also missing from Article 23 of the UN Charter in particular, which lists the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

"In fact, according to the UN Charter, there has never been legitimate grounds for this," the Foreign Ministry said.

In addition, Ukraine considers the right of Russia to be a member of the UN as a whole doubtful, since it does not meet the main criterion for membership in the Organization.

"Paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the Charter clearly states that membership in the UN is open to all peace-loving states. The actions of the Russian Federation are contrary to the concept of a 'peace-loving' state. Three decades of its illegal presence in the UN have been marked by wars and seizure of other countries' territories, forceful change of internationally recognized borders, and attempts to satisfy its invasive and neo-imperial ambitions," according to the statement.

Since 1991, Russia has vetoed the UN Security Council 31 times, almost twice as many as any other permanent member of the Security Council.