“Terrorists must lose, must be held responsible for terror and should not preside anywhere,” said the Ukrainian president.
Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky denounced this Saturday the “bankruptcy” of the United Nations where Russia took over the presidency of the Security Council for the month of April on Saturday. “It’s hard to imagine anything that proves (more) the complete bankruptcy of such institutions,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening message.
“There is no form of terror that Russia has not already exercised”, he continuedcalling for “reform of global institutions, including the UN Security Council”.
This “reform which is obviously long overdue is to prevent a terrorist state (…) from destroying the world. Terrorists must lose, must be held responsible for terror and do not preside anywhere”, insisted Volodymyr Zelensky.
A “bad joke”
His Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba had previously described the Russian presidency as a “slap in the face” given to the “international community”, with Westerners talking about “April Fool’s Day”.
“The current members” of the executive body of the UN must “thwart any attempt” by Russia to “abuse its presidency”, had urged Dmytro Kouleba who, already Thursday, had castigated this “bad joke”.
“Russia has usurped its seat; it is waging a colonial war; its president is a war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court for child abduction,” he stormed.
Russia as President of the Security Council
These criticisms from Kiev, however, did not prevent Moscow from ensuring that its delegation to the UN this month, to succeed Mozambique, would be led by the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov.
“Another key event of the Russian presidency will be the high-level open debate of the (Security) Council on ‘Effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations’. This meeting will be chaired by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Thursday.
She stressed that Sergei Lavrov also intended to chair a session of debates on the Middle East on April 25.
