Can Russia Be Expelled from the UN: Legal Grounds and Pathways to Remove the Aggressor

Over more than 80 years of UN history, the USSR and its self-proclaimed “successor,” the Russian Federation, have together used the veto over 130 times — nearly as many as the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and France combined. This raises an eminently rational question of fundamental importance: on what grounds? The UN’s founding documents and provisions contain not even the slightest mention of a state called the Russian Federation. So by what right does it occupy such a prominent position in the global system of international relations — and how can this be changed?

How Russia Ended Up in the UN: A Substitution of Concepts in December 1991

Addressing this question requires delving into history. When the UN Charter was adopted at the San Francisco Conference on June 26, 1945, the USSR became one of the founding members of the Organization — as did the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs. It was not the RSFSR — which at the time had a separate ministry of foreign affairs and could have participated in the creation of the UN but did not — but the USSR itself that became a permanent member of the Security Council, as explicitly stated in Article 23 of the UN Charter.

Now fast-forward to December 1991. The Soviet Union is collapsing — the state that had united 15 republics ceases to exist. At that moment, the newly formed Russian Federation, which by territory, borders, and all other criteria corresponds to the former RSFSR — merely one of the Union’s republics — unilaterally declares itself the “successor state” of the USSR.

This intention was announced on December 24, at the close of the Security Council’s last session of 1991 — a session over which the USSR was then presiding — when the still-Soviet permanent representative at the UN, Yuli Vorontsov, simply presented his colleagues with a fait accompli, immediately became the representative of the Russian Federation, and closed the session on that note. The sole documentary basis for these claims was a letter from President Boris Yeltsin dated December 24, 1991, in which he “informed” the UN Secretary-General that the Russian Federation, with the support of 11 CIS member states, was continuing the Soviet Union’s membership in the Security Council and all other UN bodies. The other stunned members of the Organization were left unsure what to do with this “information” — and the result has been more than 35 years of tacit acquiescence to a usurpation that violates the UN Charter.

Legal Inconsistency: Why Russia Should Have Undergone the Full Membership Procedure

It bears repeating: the RSFSR was never an independent member of the Organization. Therefore, following the denunciation of the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR, Russia — like all other former Soviet republics during 1991–1992 — should have undergone the full procedure for admission as a Member of the United Nations under Article 4 of the UN Charter, the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly (Chapter XIV, Rules 134–138), and the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council (Chapter X, Rules 58–60): submitting to the Secretary-General an application containing a declaration of acceptance of the obligations under the Charter, and only after a recommendation by the Security Council and a corresponding decision of the General Assembly, adopted by a two-thirds majority, becoming a member state of the Organization. A presidential letter citing the so-called Alma-Ata Declaration and a mere “change of nameplate” — as Ukrainian diplomats aptly describe Russia’s “continuation” of USSR membership in UN bodies — bears little resemblance to the official procedure that would have made Russia a legitimate member of the UN. And it is abundantly clear that Russia cannot, by any measure, embody all fifteen Soviet republics: it was part of the USSR, and emerged from it as just one piece — albeit one with enormous imperial ambitions.

Ukraine’s Diplomatic Campaign and the Role of Civil Society

Ukrainian diplomacy has therefore firmly insisted on stripping Russia of its UN seat, given the glaring legal inconsistencies that indicate Russia is not, de jure, a member of the Organization at all. This, combined with all the barbaric crimes of the aggressor state, must constitute the primary ground for ending its de facto presence in the United Nations and all its bodies. In late December 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a diplomatic campaign to substantiate the illegality of Russia’s presence on the Security Council and in the Organization more broadly. Civil society plays a key role in this effort as well. The Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, which on March 18, 2026 signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is continuing the mission of the #UnRussiaUN movement — building a foundation for the voice of the Ukrainian community to be heard by the international community. And this is indeed happening: world leaders are supporting Ukraine’s position that the illegitimate presence of the aggressor on the Security Council — which under Article 24 of the UN Charter bears primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security — is unacceptable.

It is simply impossible to turn a blind eye to the systematic violations by the aggressor state of the fundamental principles proclaimed in Article 2 of the Charter, which obliges all member states to settle their international disputes by peaceful means and to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

The Article 6 Trap: Why the Veto Blocks Expulsion

And here, one might think, the crime is obvious and punishment inevitable — yet this is precisely where we approach the trap. Article 6 of the UN Charter states: A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Moreover, the question of expelling a member state is not a procedural matter — and therefore, for a Security Council recommendation to be valid, it must, under Article 27(3) of the Charter, receive the affirmative votes of nine Council members, including the concurring votes of all permanent members. Russia’s veto right renders this option impossible.

This once again demonstrates the enormous price of the international community’s pragmatism. Three and a half decades ago, world leaders apparently found it convenient to accept the “successor state” initiative simply to avoid the bureaucratic complications of formally replacing the USSR with Russia in the Security Council under the Charter and disrupting the nuclear status quo. So despite the complete absence of legal legitimacy and the breach of established procedures, the world has for all this time de facto recognized the validity of Russia’s position in UN bodies — and in doing so, allowed the Charter to be circumvented and emboldened the aggressor by handing it an umbrella of impunity.

Challenging Credentials: An Interim Mechanism for Removing Russia

Yet it is equally clear that this usurped dominant position must not serve as a universal source of impunity. And this is precisely what returns us, once again, to the importance of Ukraine’s lobbying on the question of Russia’s illegitimate presence in UN bodies. If we succeed in persuading the world to open its eyes to the illegality of this state’s actions and position — and to find the courage to resist it — this will mean only one thing for Russia: instead of retaining levers of influence over global security decision-making, it will simply be out of the game. And returning to the system through a lawful procedure would take a very long time indeed, since admission to the Organization is open to peace-loving states, as Article 4 of the Charter declares. That fundamental criterion clearly does not apply to an aggressor state and one of the principal disturbers of the contemporary world order.

The process of expelling Russia from the global system requires a significant shift in the status quo and a realignment of key actors’ positions — and will therefore be quite time-consuming. In the meantime, there exists an interim mechanism for removing Russia from decision-making: the challenging of credentials. To this end, the Credentials Committee must submit a report to the General Assembly in which the right of the Russian delegation to participate in the current session is contested — grounded in the arguments of illegitimate succession and the incompatibility of Russia’s aggressive conduct with the Organization’s fundamental principles. The General Assembly would then adopt, by simple majority, a resolution refusing to approve the credentials of Russian representatives. History already knows such a precedent on another continent: in 1974, the General Assembly refused to recognize the credentials of South Africa because of its criminal apartheid regime — a regime that was overcome in large part precisely because of such comprehensive international isolation.

In Russia’s case, this procedure offers several advantages that ease its implementation: it does not involve the Security Council, and therefore cannot be blocked by a veto; it does not formally expel Russia from the UN, and therefore does not entail the kind of sweeping systemic upheaval that deters key actors from making a decision. Most importantly, the non-recognition of Russia’s credentials would send a powerful signal that the international community does not tolerate aggression — and mark a first step toward ultimately holding the aggressor accountable for years of atrocities.

Conclusion: Justice Begins with Upholding One’s Own Rules

I am therefore convinced that the just and effective functioning of the global system — whose fundamental obligation is to ensure the peaceful, secure, and developmental coexistence of states, nations, and peoples — begins with the moral obligation of the global community of states to strictly uphold the foundational rules of that system as they themselves have established them: the Charter of the United Nations. The path toward Russia’s full expulsion from the UN on the grounds of the illegitimacy of its membership demands that the world’s states find the resolve to look clearly and impartially at the contemporary international system with all its flaws — and the readiness to acknowledge the legal inconsistencies that have been permitted and to bring about the changes necessary to restore justice and the rule of law.

As we previously reported, this question has been examined by other participants in the #UnRussiaUN contest. We also invite you to read the essay “Legal Nullity and Geopolitical Destruction.”