Contents
Russia kidnapped around 20,000 Ukrainian children from their homeland. Then Russia called a special session of the UN Security Council.
From a Russian perspective, kidnapping Ukrainian children was a merciful evacuation, but for almost everyone else it was a brutal, unlawful deportation. To promote his point, Russia, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, called a special session. To the outrage of a number of members, including Switzerland.
In protest, most members of the Security Council sent only low-ranking diplomats to the propaganda session convened by Russia. The ambassadors themselves stayed away, including the Swiss ambassador. It was particularly annoying that Moscow let Maria Lwowa-Belova appear as the main speaker via video. “The woman who is behind the child deportations and who is therefore wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes on an arrest warrant,” said the United States Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in front of the media.
The representative of Switzerland accused Russia of having “convened a meeting to spread disinformation and twist facts”. The representative of Malta spoke of “abuse of such special session formats by Russia”. The British diplomat gave Russia zero credibility on the issue.
When the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child spoke, several delegations, the American, British, Maltese and Albanian ones, even demonstratively, left the room. Around 50 UN member states, including Switzerland, had previously issued a statement protesting against the special session and stressed that Russia’s abuse of Ukrainian children had been credibly proven many times over: by the International Criminal Court, the UN Commission of Inquiry, human rights organizations and media research.
Legend:
Russian Ambassador Wassily Nebenzia also considered the special session to be defamatory, but for different reasons.
Reuters/Eduardo Munoz
Russia’s Ambassador Wassily Nebenzia was undeterred by all of this. His government just wanted to “debunk lies”. He repeatedly accused diplomats of other countries that they should have listened better instead of asking unnecessary questions.
In fact, there was only one point in which Nebenzia was right. Namely when at the end he described the special session as massively damaging to the reputation of the UN Security Council. Indeed she was. However, not because of the states that dismissed it as a farce, but rather because of Russia itself, which wanted to use the most powerful UN body for its disinformation.