The driving principle is to do everything possible to bridge the gap between emerging countries and the West, a gap that the war in Ukraine has both exposed and expanded. The debates at the UN General Assembly, which begins in New York on Tuesday, September 19, will take place against the backdrop of the fighting that continues to rage 19 months after the Russian invasion. As the Ukrainian counter-offensive continues, the conflict is expected to be directly tackled by US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the opening of the talks. However, both Western diplomats and their UN colleagues have repeatedly stressed that the concerns of both impoverished and developing countries alike will be central to the work of the 140 or so heads of state and government expected to attend, out of 193 member states.

Kept away from the G20 summit held 10 days ago in New Delhi, Zelensky will himself be keen to plead his case to the many leaders of the so-called Global South, who refuse to choose sides between Russia and Ukraine. After a speech at the podium on Tuesday, he will take part in a Security Council meeting on Wednesday, devoted to the war that is tearing his country apart. "The Ukrainian president is playing for big stakes," warned Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think-tank. "He could anger some leaders of emerging countries if he doesn't tone down his criticism of Russia and the UN. But, if he focuses on defending the UN Charter and peace, which many of them are calling for, he could actually win new allies."

To date, Kyiv and its Western allies seem to have given up on organizing a new meeting, after those in Copenhagen and Jeddah, on the "peace plan" presented by Zelensky a year ago at the G20 summit in Bali. While 35 member states, including 17 African states, China and India, refrained from condemning Moscow in the aftermath of the invasion, the idea is to avoid confrontation between the West and the countries of the South, which Moscow and Beijing often claim to lead. For French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna, who is leading the French delegation on behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron, the Global South is in fact a "misnomer." "The planet is vast, it's diverse, and when I hear the Russian Foreign Minister talk about the Global South as if Russia were part of the South, that really concerns me. I find it literally something inaccurate, perhaps even a misleading expression and intended to deceive."

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