China, another veto-holding member of the Council, abstained from the vote. So did the United Arab Emirates and India, while the remaining 11 Council members voted in favor.
A day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” aimed at “demilitarization” of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics in eastern Ukraine.
The regions broke away from Ukraine in 2014 after refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.
More than 14,000 people have been killed so far across the regions as a result of the conflict that ensued between the Ukrainian military and the pro-Russian separatists.
Announcing the operation, Putin said the mission was aimed at “defending people who for eight years are suffering persecution and genocide by the Kiev regime.”
The United States and its allies have, however, reacted harshly to the development, and started to impose severe sanctions on the Russian economy.
Also on Friday, Putin said he was ready to dispatch a high-level delegation for talks with Ukraine in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, the Kremlin announced.
Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian head of state was ready to “send a delegation at the level of representatives of Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and Presidential Administration to Minsk for negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation.”
Minsk hosted previous peace negotiations on the Ukrainian crisis.
A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said Kiev was ready to discuss ceasefire and peace with Russia.
The draft Security Council resolution demanded that Russia “immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine.”
Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Alekseevich Nebenzya, however, said Russian forces were not bombing Ukrainian cities, reaffirming Putin’s earlier assertion that the military operation was aimed at “demilitarizing” Ukraine, and hence posed no threat to civilian lives.
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