Given the fact that the UN Secretary General did not ignore Boris Yeltsin’s letter and asked the President of the Security Council to inform all members of its content; that none of the Security Council members raised any objections to Yeltsin’s request to confirm the authority of the Russian Federation in UN structures as well as change the representatives of the USSR at the UN into representatives of Russia — the process of restoring justice will not be easy.

Thirty-one years have passed since Russia illegally seized the seat of the USSR in the UN, and all this time no state has raised the issue of the lack of legal grounds for Russia’s membership in the UN. It’s membership could give it grounds to use the “estoppel” principle used in international law in similar cases.

But no political considerations should interfere with the administration of justice. The principle of good faith, from which the “estoppel” principle is derived, is incompatible with Russia’s actions.

“for thirty years, the Russian Federation kept its troops in foreign territories, later occupied them, tried to illegally annex them, carried out military aggression, shot down civilian planes, committed gross violations of human rights in the occupied territories, killed thousands of foreign soldiers and civilians, waged wars against the people in Chechnya and neighboring countries”

“all these long and bloody decades, Russia never dared to legitimize its presence in the Security Council”

– said in his speech in December 2021, the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya.

Russia is acting in bad faith and cannot plead good faith, so the “estoppel” principle cannot be invoked.

Taking into account the stated facts, a practical question arises: how to deprive Russia of the seat in the UN, which it occupies illegally?

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya has already sent a request to the Secretariat with a request to provide information on all changes to the UN Charter. The Secretariat reported that the last change was made in 1973, i.e. eighteen years before the Soviet Union disappeared from the political map of the world.

Ukraine can offer the international community the following algorithm of actions to restore justice within the institution of the UN: