Ukraine considers it a “joke” that Russia is taking over the presidency of the UN Security Council

Russia took over the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council on Saturday amid complaints from Ukraine and criticism from its allies, who are reminding Moscow of its repeated flouting of the international legal system. For Kyiv, it is “a bad joke,” according to his foreign minister, Dmitr Kuleba. It is the first time that an international arrest warrant has been issued for the president of a country in that position for war crimes.

Each of the 15 members of the United Nations’ highest decision-making body — five permanent and ten rotating — assumes the presidency for one month based on alphabetical rotation, a function that is essentially a protocol. The last time Russia chaired it was in February 2022, when it launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s presidency of the Council angered the Ukrainian government, which called for a boycott. The United States responded cannot prevent Russia as a permanent member with veto power from taking office.

“Russia has usurped the throne, is waging a colonial war, its leader is a war criminal accused by the International Criminal Court of child abduction,” Kuleba said on Twitter, referring to Ukraine’s position that Moscow illegally succeeded the USSR and the recent decision of the court in The Hague against Vladimir Putin.

During April, the Russian delegation led by the ambassador to the UN, Vasilij Nebenzja He will be in charge of managing the work agenda and presiding over Security Council sessions.

One of the main advantages of the position is that the presidency can organize special sessions on issues that it considers particularly important and in which members of the Government often participate. In the Russian case, it is expected that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, travel to New York to conduct at least two meetings.

three topics

Russia will present three topics: multilateralism and the Charter of the United Nations, violation of agreements regulating the export of conventional weapons and the Middle East, especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

But he does not propose any meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine, although questions about weapons and multilateralism will surely end up alluding to that conflict.

Meanwhile, the presidents of France and Ukraine discussed on Saturday the diplomatic steps at the international level that might be needed to organize a summit aimed at achieving peace. Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky, They held a new phone conversation, in which the French leader “reiterated his support for Ukraine to end Russian aggression,” the Élysée said in a statement after the conversation. Next week, the French president is traveling together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Beijing.