The Kremlin on Tuesday praised Washington’s “balanced position” after the US voted with Russia at the United Nations to avoid condemnation of Moscow’s campaign against Ukraine. The United States sided with Russia in two votes in New York on Monday, signalling a seismic shift as US president Donald Trump stakes out a drastically new position on Ukraine. “The US is taking a much more balanced position which is really aimed at trying to resolve the Ukraine conflict. We welcome this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov said comments from European leaders “do not signal balance”, adding: “But, perhaps, as a result of contacts between the Europeans and the Americans, somehow Europe will gravitate towards greater balance”. On the third anniversary of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, Washington and Moscow aligned first at a Monday morning vote at the General Assembly and again at an afternoon vote of the Security Council. A European-backed text got 93 votes for at the General Assembly and 18 votes against, with 65 abstentions. Washington sided with Moscow and Russian allies Belarus, North Korea and Sudan to vote against the text. The resolution — which won far less support compared to previous ones on the war — strongly criticises Russia, and emphasises Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of its borders. Washington drafted a rival resolution amid an intensifying feud between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But Ukraine’s European allies pushed to heavily reword the US text to say that the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine” had been carried out by Russia, meaning Washington ultimately did not vote in favour of its own text. Undeterred, the United States brought the earlier, unchanged text to a vote at the Security Council in the afternoon, securing its passage with 10 votes for and none against — alongside five abstentions. The abstentions were France, Britain, Denmark, Greece, and Slovenia. AFP