Russia has vehemently censured the recent strikes by the United States and its allies against Yemen as “unjustified” and in violation of the United Nations’ Charter, amid rising escalating tensions off the Yemeni coast.
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said on Friday that the US-led coalition’s strikes under the pretext of supporting maritime transit in the Red Sea are “contrary to Article 2 of the UN Charter.”
“It is one thing to protect commercial shipping, attacks on which are unacceptable, but it is completely different to disproportionately and illegally bomb another state,” Nebenzia told a Security Council meeting.
The Russian diplomat said “no legitimate mandate” exists for bombing Yemen and it is even more ridiculous to talk about the right to self-defense “a thousand miles from one’s own borders.”
Nebenzia stressed that the US assesses the alleged threats and plans its response “without the slightest regard for international law,” as result of which, “the situation in the already burning Middle East” will deteriorate even more.
Khaled Khiari, the assistant secretary-general for the Middle East at the UN, also warned against escalated tensions in the strategic waterway, saying, “We are witnessing the cycle of violence that risks grave political security, economic and humanitarian repercussions in Yemen and the region.”
This is while US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield defended Washington’s dealdy attacks and claimed that no countries’ vessels were immune to “threats” posed by Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah resistance movement to shipping in the Red Sea.
“Whether your ship flies an American flag, or the flag of another nation… all of our ships are vulnerable,” Thomas-Greenfield said, claiming that the strikes were designed “to disrupt and degrade the Houthis’ ability to continue the reckless attacks against vessels and commercial shipping.”
British Ambassador Susan Woodward also said the Western strikes were regarded as “limited, necessary, and proportionate action in self-defense.”
Major cities across the United States have been the scene of widespread rallies against recent Washington-led attacks on Yemen in support of Israel’s months-long genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Early on Friday, the American and British warplanes targeted with 73 missiles five regions of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a and the provinces of Hudaydah, Ta’izz, Hajjah, and Sa’ada, killing at least five people and wounding six others.
On Saturday morning, the US military claimed to have conducted a new attack against a radar site that belonged to Ansarullah resistance movement in the capital Sana’a.
In a firm response to the Western strikes, the Yemeni Armed Forces have vowed that the any “criminal aggression” by the US and UK against their country will not go “unanswered and unpunished.”
Yemen’s Armed Forces and the popular resistance movement have repeatedly asserted that international vessels will be safe in the Red Sea and only Israeli-owned and –bound ships will be targeted in the strategic waterway in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.
The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has killed at least 23,357 people, most of them women and children. Another 59,410 individuals have been wounded.
