Russia has defended its veto of a US-drafted UN Security Council resolution on Western Sahara, arguing the text sidelined the Sahrawi pro-independence movement and imposed Morocco’s autonomy plan as the only route to a settlement. Speaking at the UN General Assembly on November 10, Russia’s deputy permanent representative Anna Evstigneeva said Washington’s drafts had ignored the Sahrawi people’s claim to self-determination.
The European Union said the veto had blocked the renewal of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), endangering regional stability. It said the sudden dismantling of the mandate “undermines multilateral peace efforts”.
Moscow blocked the US text on October 30 although 11 of the 15 Security Council members voted in favour. China, Pakistan and Somalia abstained.
A rival Russian draft that would have extended the mission for a year also failed, winning three votes. With no resolution adopted, MINURSO’s mandate expired on October 31, ending a UN peacekeeping presence in the territory that began in 1991.
According to the Associated Press, the US draft would have wound down the peacekeeping operation by April 30, 2027 and replaced it with a political mission no longer tasked with organising a referendum. It also described genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the only feasible solution.
Evstigneeva said the drafts sought to turn the Sahrawis into refugees without historical claims, on terms never agreed with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro, known as the Polisario Front. She said reducing a decolonisation question to an internal political and humanitarian issue would close off any alternative for the territory’s people.
She added that Moscow’s offer of a one-year technical extension had been a chance to save MINURSO but the West had rejected it.
Morocco’s UN ambassador Omar Hilale blamed Algeria for the deadlock. Algeria, the Polisario Front’s main backer, insisted Western Sahara remained a question of decolonisation.
The US delegation defended its text. “A referendum that can never be held serves no one,” it told the Assembly, according to a UN summary.
The session was held under a 2022 Assembly mechanism that requires the 193-member body to meet within 10 working days of any veto.
The EU reaffirmed its support for a UN-led solution based on Morocco’s autonomy proposal that includes the principle of self-determination, in line with Security Council Resolution 2797. That resolution, adopted in October 2025, established the autonomy plan as the basis for negotiations.
The 27 member states aligned the bloc’s position with it in Brussels on January 29. That shift came after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in October 2024 that EU-Morocco trade deals covering the territory were invalid because its people had not consented to them.
