Security Council gives broadside
Russia backs down on UN resolution
03/18/2022, 00:24
Apparently, the Kremlin can’t even count China on its side: many states are calling the draft of Russia’s UN resolution condemning Ukraine for the alleged production of biological weapons bullshit. Now Russia is refraining from voting.
Russia is refraining from a planned vote on a resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine due to a lack of support in the UN Security Council. New York diplomatic circles said that Russia had not been able to find supporters for its draft resolution. This suggests that even China would not have voted for the text. Russia actually wanted to bring the resolution to a vote on Friday after it had been postponed several times.
Instead, the most powerful UN body is to meet again on Friday morning US Eastern Time (probably 3 p.m. CET) for an emergency meeting over alleged US laboratories producing biological weapons in Ukraine, announced the Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebensia. The Council had already dealt with the issue at Moscow’s request. The allegations are widely described as misinformation and unfounded propaganda.
British Ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, said at the Council’s meeting in early March that Russia had requested this meeting on alleged bioweapons only to voice “a series of wild, totally baseless and irresponsible conspiracy theories”.
Kremlin claims ‘complete nonsense’
“Let me put it diplomatically: they are complete nonsense,” Woodward said of the Russian allegations. “There is not the slightest credible indication that Ukraine has a biological weapons program.”
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, made a similar statement. Russia had requested the Security Council meeting in New York “for the sole purpose of lying and spreading false information”. Russia apparently wants to use chemical weapons in Ukraine itself “under false flags”. “Russia is notorious for falsely blaming other countries for the very same violations it commits.”