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A few days later, Russia chaired an informal session of the Security Council about the circumstances by which thousands of Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken to Russia. The meeting, said Nebenzia, was “to dispel this narrative” that the children were abducted. To do so, Russia invited Maria Lvova-Belova, a Kremlin official wanted for arrest on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court, to deliver testimony to the chamber. When she spoke, numerous diplomats staged a walkout in protest.
Things are getting all the more feisty and awkward this week, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gavels in two sessions of the Security Council. On Monday, he chaired a meeting on “effective multilateralism” and the “defense” of the principles enshrined in the charter of the United Nations. Given the backdrop of more than a year of unprovoked Russian aggression in Ukraine, onlookers were less than impressed.
“They’re trying to troll us,” a U.S. official told Politico’s Nahal Toosi. “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.”
The session turned into a rare face-to-face confrontation between Russia and some of its leading adversaries. “Our hypocritical convener today, Russia, invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, and struck at the heart of the U.N. Charter. This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war runs directly counter to our most shared principles — that a war of aggression and territorial conquest is never, ever acceptable,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“As we sit here, that aggression continues,” Thomas-Greenfield added. “As we sit here, Russian forces continue to kill and injure civilians. As we sit here, Russian forces are destroying Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. As we sit here, we brace ourselves for the next Bucha, the next Mariupol, the next Kherson, the next war crime, the next atrocity.”
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres sat next to Lavrov and opened the session condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it violated international law and the U.N. Charter, and “is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people, and adding to the global economic dislocation” triggered by the pandemic.
“Russia is trying to portray itself as a defender of the U.N. Charter and multilateralism. Nothing can be further from the truth. It’s cynical,” said Olof Skoog, E.U. representative to the United Nations. “We all know that while Russia is destroying, we are building. While they violate, we protect.”
Faced with this chorus of criticism, Lavrov resorted to Moscow’s talking points, casting the government in Kyiv as a “Nazi” regime and of Western-backed “putschists.” He said the moment had reprised the tensions of the Cold War and that the world has arrived at a “dangerous, possibly even more dangerous threshold” because of the adventurism of the NATO military alliance. He accused the United States and its allies of “abandoning diplomacy” and echoed China’s anger at the United States’ perceived “bloc vs. bloc” geopolitics.
Before leaving Moscow on Sunday, Lavrov attacked the United States for denying visas to Russian journalists slated to accompany the foreign minister to New York City, accusing the Biden administration of “chickening out” and not upholding values of free speech. For the United States’ part, Thomas-Greenfield brought to the Security Council on Monday the sister of Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned by Russia. Whelan, alongside Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, is designated by the State Department as wrongfully detained — essentially, a political prisoner.
Beyond an occasion for prominent permanent members of the Security Council to sling political barbs at each other, there are urgent, substantive issues on the agenda. The conflict in Sudan may feature in deliberations, while Lavrov is expected to have a tough conversation with Guterres about the future of the U.N.-sponsored grain deal — perhaps the sole significant diplomatic breakthrough since the Russian invasion began — which allows Ukraine to ship its stores of wheat and barley past Russian blockade. It faces a May 18 deadline for renewal, which Russia may walk away from if Western restrictions on its own agricultural and fertilizer exports are not lifted.
In a message on social media, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev railed against reports that Group of Seven nations were planning to ban all Russian exports and warned that the grain deal — which is significant for the global supply of wheat — would get axed. “This idea from the idiots at the G-7 about a total ban of exports to our country by default is beautiful in that it implies a reciprocal ban on imports from our country, including categories of goods that are the most sensitive for the G-7,” Medvedev said. “In such a case, the grain deal — and many other things that they need — will end for them.”
Many analysts see Russia’s conduct at the United Nations as more evidence of the failings of the institution. The Security Council, after all, enshrines through its permanent, veto-wielding members a global order that existed after the end of World War II, but which hardly reflects the complexities and challenges of the current 21st century moment.
Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister of Finland, tweeted that it is an “absolute disgrace” that Russia is allowed to chair the U.N. Security Council. “A country that is violating the very foundations that the [organization] stands for. A sad day for a rules based multilateral world order, or whatever is left of it,” he wrote.
Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group think tank, argued that for all the frustration that surrounds the United Nations, the Security Council remains a necessary point of contact between adversaries and a space for dialogue.
“The U.S. and its allies are playing a double game with Russia in the council. They are using it to trade blows in public on Ukraine, while also cutting quiet deals on other crises while the media’s attention is elsewhere,” Gowan told me. “I think that actually speaks to the genius of the Security Council as an institution where states can compromise and confront one another in parallel.”
He added, that “if I were Ukrainian or Ethiopian and looked at the council, I would feel nothing but anger about the U.N.’s failure to protect my people. The council is not exactly living up to the ideals of the U.N. Charter, but it is still a useful safety valve in international affairs.”
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