Irish Independents Clare Daly and Mike Wallace were among 26 MEPs to vote against a resolution passed with an overwhelming majority in the European Parliament to condemn “gunpoint” referenda and increase support for Ukraine.
Fellow Left group Independent Luke Ming Flanagan abstained on the resolution, while Sinn Féin’s Chris MacManus voted in favour along with MEPs from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party.
The resolution, passed with 504 votes in favour on Thursday, condemned “in the strongest possible terms the unjustified, unprovoked and illegal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine” while commending “the great courage of the Ukrainian people”.
It condemned “unequivocally . . . as illegal and illegitimate the sham referendums conducted at gunpoint to annex the oblasts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia”, which are seen as a pretext for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s announcement of their annexation by Moscow.
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The text condemned “the massive and grave violations of human rights and war crimes committed by the Russian armed forces” and called for the establishment of an international tribunal “for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, where Putin and all Russian civilian and military officials and their proxies responsible for masterminding, launching and conducting the war in Ukraine would be prosecuted”.
It called for an immediate embargo on imports of Russian fossil fuels and uranium, and appealed for all countries supporting Ukraine to “massively increase their military assistance, particularly in the areas where it is requested by the Ukrainian government, in order to allow Ukraine to regain full control over its entire internationally recognised territory”.
Ms Daly said she had voted against due to the resolution’s “calls for even more weapons into conflict zone”, “pressure on neutral states”, “more failed, self-defeating sanctions” and “bellicose, escalatory language”.
Mr Wallace said that the majority of MEPs in the parliament “prefer war to peace”.
An amendment to the text that was tabled by the Left group, which was rejected by the majority of MEPs in a vote, called for “negotiations and dialogue to achieve a ceasefire . . . considering a certain degree of autonomy for regions, where appropriate, as well as neutral status for Ukraine”.
Mr Wallace, Mr Flanagan and Ms Daly voted in favour of this amendment, while Mr MacManus abstained.
