It’s Russia’s turn to chair the United Nations Security Council this month and, true to form, they’ve turned the normally staid council chamber into a grand theater of the absurd.
Specifically, the Russians are using their chance to dominate security council proceedings to justify their invasion of Ukraine. For example, Ukraine reports — and the Russians admit to — kidnapping Ukrainian children and taking them back to Russia. Most of the civilized world views this practice, which has been unknown since the days of Nazi Germany, with repugnance. It’s a terror tactic designed to force occupied areas to behave themselves and not cause the Russians any trouble.
But Russia says we’ve got it all wrong. Moscow insists it took the children for their own safety and will eventually return them to their families.
To make its case, Russia asked one of the top people overseeing the transfers, Maria Lvova-Belova, to brief the meeting remotely. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Lvova-Belova as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin over the child transfers.
The United States and Britain vociferously objected, and they sent lower-level delegates who walked out when Lvova-Belova spoke. Britain, later joined by the United States, refused to allow the U.N. to broadcast the event on its official website, a European diplomat familiar with the U.N. process said. Traditionally, such informal sessions are broadcast on U.N. sites unless a council member objects. Blocking one is rare.
“They’re trying to troll us,” an American official familiar with the U.S. operations at the United Nations said in describing the Russian tactics. “They’re picking topics where they know some of their most egregious actions in this war are centered, and they’re trying to flip the narrative on its head. We’re not going to fall for it.”
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The last time Russia chaired the UNSC was in February 2022. In fact, at the moment that Russian forces began to move into Ukraine, Russia was chairing a meeting of the security council. They proceeded as if nothing untoward was happening, including allowing the Ukrainian representative to speak at length.
The fact that Russia chaired the council then and now only highlights the need for structural change at the UN. “It is crazy that Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council after they grossly violated the U.N. Charter,” a U.S. official quoted by Politico said. “This is really one of many manifestations of how the Security Council and the U.N. broadly need reform.”
And Russia may be trying to avoid a lot of controversies.
“They are lucky that it is not a month with massively sensitive votes coming up,” said Richard Gowan, a U.N. analyst with the International Crisis Group.“They left a lot of days empty. That looks to me like a deliberate effort to avoid excessive controversy.”
It’s hard to “avoid excessive controversy” when the chair’s country is committing numerous war crimes and lying about it.
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