Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he had discussed stripping ‘aggressor’ Russia off its vote at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in view of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“To deprive the aggressor country of the right to vote in the UN Security Council, to qualify Russian actions and statements as genocide of the Ukrainian people, to help with the delivery of corpses of Russian soldiers. Talked about it in a conversation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.

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The development arrives a day after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution telling Moscow to halt its attack on Ukraine and to withdraw all troops immediately.

Eleven countries voted in favour of the resolution, while India, China and the UAE, abstained. The 11-1 vote showed significant but not total opposition to Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.

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Russia is one of the five permanent members of the UNSC – along with the United States, United Kingdom, France, and China. These members have the right to veto decisions and stall them from getting approved, regardless of the votes by the other ten members of the council. 

Russia launched a massive invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea on Thursday, after months of military build-up at the border and heightening suspicion of war by the West. Moscow’s aggression is considerably the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War II.

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Russian forces on Friday closed in on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv in an apparent encircling movement after a barrage of airstrikes on cities and military bases around the country. More than 130 Ukrainian soldiers were killed on the first day of fighting.