Tag: Student Essay Contest 2026

This question seems provocative only to those accustomed to viewing international institutions as unchanging stage scenery rather than living legal constructs subject to the same principles of logic and justice that underpin any legal system. In matters of this magnitude, nothing is impossible — there is only a lack of will and a lack of arguments. Diplomats will have to address the first; the second is what I will try to work through here.

Yevhen Kostohryzov, a student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), examined the legal and political mechanisms that could lead to restricting or stripping Russia of its UN membership and its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. The essay was submitted to the #UnRussiaUN competition organized by the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation.

In February 2022, when the UN Security Council convened an emergency session following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, no one truly expected a different outcome. Russia said “no” — and blocked any resolution. One vote. One permanent member. And the complete helplessness of an organization founded precisely to prevent such things from ever happening again. That moment was not merely a symbol of a particular diplomatic failure — it exposed a structural pathology embedded since 1945: the international collective security system proved architecturally incapable of responding to aggression by one of its own founders. The question “can Russia be expelled from the UN?” is therefore not simply a legal puzzle, but a question about the limits of international law, about the logic of realpolitik, and ultimately about what strategy Ukraine should pursue in a world where the rules were not written for it.

Author: Ruslana Petrivna Kistechok, 3rd-year student of the “International Relations, Social Communications and Regional Studies” programme, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Lviv Polytechnic National University

The modern system of international law, which emerged after World War II, is now in a state of deep crisis. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — now in its fourth year in 2026 — the United Nations has demonstrated its inability to fulfill the core function enshrined in its Charter: maintaining international peace and security. This problem is most visible in the UN Security Council, where Russia abuses its veto power to block any binding resolutions concerning its own aggression. For Ukraine, this is not merely a question of justice, but of the state’s very survival. In this essay, I will attempt to analyze whether real international legal mechanisms exist to expel the Russian Federation from the UN or at least strip it of its voting rights in the Security Council.

Kharchenko Kyrylo Vitaliyovych, National University “Odesa Law Academy,” Faculty of Judicial and International Law

As of 2026, the international community finds itself in a situation that the founders of the United Nations in 1945 would have preferred to consider impossible. The organization created “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” has become a platform where the aggressor is not merely present but dictates terms through the right of veto.

Dmytro Fialkovskyi
Educational and Research Institute of International Relations
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine has sharpened the debate not only about the responsibility of the aggressor state, but also about the effectiveness of global governance institutions themselves. Calls for Russia’s expulsion from the UN as a form of institutional sanction are heard with increasing frequency in the public sphere. Yet such demands often ignore the fundamental legal constraints built into the very architecture of the organization. Formally expelling Russia is practically unfeasible; the most promising avenue is challenging the legitimacy of its status as the successor state of the USSR in the Security Council.

The question of whether Russia can be expelled from the United Nations following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has long outgrown the status of a political slogan. It concerns not only the punishment of an aggressor state, but also the credibility of the entire international security system. If a state violates the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, occupies the territory of another state, and simultaneously remains a permanent member of the Security Council, a question arises: has the UN itself become hostage to its own architecture? In my view, expelling Russia from the UN through a single formal decision is nearly impossible — yet it is possible to gradually challenge the legitimacy of its privileged status within the Organization.

Author: Anastasia Opanasenko, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv