At a meeting of the UN Security Council chaired by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia was vehemently denounced for its attack on Ukraine. At Monday’s session, UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the invasion of Ukraine as a breach of international law and the UN Charter.
Sitting next to Lavrov, Guterres accused Russia of causing “massive suffering” and “devastation” to Ukraine.
In April, Russia holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations’ most powerful body for a month. Lavrov traveled to New York for Monday’s meeting. The session, hosted by Russia, was devoted to the theme of “Defending the Principles” of the UN.
The greatest tensions in the UN since its inception
Guterres also said at the meeting that the Ukraine war has further exacerbated the turmoil in the global economy caused by the corona pandemic. He complained that “the multilateral system” is currently under more pressure than it has ever been since the UN was founded in 1945. Tensions between the “great powers” had reached “the highest point”.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield held a copy of the UN Charter as she slammed Russia as the “hypocritical organizer” of the session. With its invasion of Ukraine, Russia “delivered a heartbeat to the UN Charter”.
In a note sent to Security Council members in advance, Russia, referring to the US, criticized the “unipolar world order” that emerged after the end of the Cold War and which threatens the “effectiveness and stability of the United Nations system”. However, a shift is taking place in which the “unipolar order is reaching its limits and rapidly losing strength as a new multipolar system emerges.”
Before the meeting, Lavrov told reporters that the United Nations system was in a “deep crisis”. He blamed the western states for this.
The EU Ambassador to the UN, Olof Skoog, in his turn, in an interview with journalists, described it as “cynical” that Russia presented itself as a defender of the UN Charter and multilateralism. “Nothing is further from the truth,” he said. (AFP)
