Absurdity to a new level’ as Russia takes charge
of UN security council
Monthly rotation of presidency of 15-member council
has been unaffected by Ukraine war
Julian
Borger
Julian
Borger in New York
Fri 31 Mar
2023 05.00 BST
In Ukraine,
Moscow is pursuing an unprovoked war of aggression. In The Hague, Vladimir
Putin is facing an arrest warrant for war crimes. But at the UN, Russia is
about to take charge of a powerful international body, the security council.
From
Saturday, it will be Russia’s turn to take up the monthly presidency of the
15-member council, in line with a rotation that has been unaffected by the
Ukraine war.
The last
time Russia held the gavel was in February last year, when Putin declared his
“special military operation” in the middle of a council session on Ukraine.
Fourteen months on, tens of thousands of people have been killed, many of them
civilians, cities have been ruined and Putin has been indicted by the
international criminal court for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.
In such
circumstances, putting Russia in the driving seat of a world body tasked with
“maintaining international peace and security” seems like a cruel April fools
joke to many, not least the Ukrainian mission to the UN.
“As of 1
April, they’re taking the level of absurdity to a new level,” said Sergiy
Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian permanent representative. “The security council as it
is designed is immobilised and incapable to address the issues of their primary
responsibility, that is prevention of conflicts and then dealing with
conflicts.”
The
ambassador said Ukraine would stay away from the security council in April
except in the case of an “issue of critical national security interest”.
Ukraine is not a current council member, though it is often called to speak on
issues related to the war.
The US,
Britain, France and their supporters on the council are likely to show their
disapproval by downgrading the level of their representation at Russian-hosted
events over the course of the month, but no member state is known to be
planning any form of boycott or other protest.
Diplomats
at the UN headquarters in New York point out that most of the council’s
business in April, like any month, is taken up by routine briefings and reports
on UN peacekeeping missions around the world.
“It’s
important to protect the rest of the council’s work on other files,” one
European diplomat said. “We don’t want to disrupt the work that the council is
doing elsewhere, because that would allow Russia’s invasion to have an even
wider impact on issues of peace and security around the world.”
The council
presidency does give the monthly incumbent the power to organise its own
sessions, and Russia is planning three. On 10 April it will hold a briefing on
the “risks stemming from the violations of the agreements regulating the export
of weapons and military equipment”, at which it is expected to single out the US
for its arms supplies to Ukraine and to other allies over recent years.
Later in
the month, it will chair two open debates on “effective multilateralism” and on
the situation in the Middle East, over which its foreign minister, Sergei
Lavrov, is expected to preside.
The last
occasion when a permanent member of the council carried out an unprovoked
invasion was the US attack on Iraq. The US was not subjected to the humiliation
of repeated overwhelming defeats in the UN general assembly of the kind that
Russia has endured over the past year, with about 140 of the 193 member states
voting against Moscow’s positions, leaving Belarus, Eritrea, Syria and North
Korea as Russia’s only reliable friends.
Russia’s
deputy permanent representative, Dmitry Polyanskiy, denied that his mission was
becoming a pariah at the UN. “Absolutely not. We feel that the west is
embattled in the UN right now because more countries understand our position,”
Polyanskiy said, claiming that the western allies had to water down resolutions
and arm-twist to get 140 votes. “So I think that it’s rather the west is
isolated, but not us in the general assembly.”
As for
Putin’s ICC arrest warrant, Polyanskiy dismissed it as “totally irrelevant to
any of our activities”. The last time the Russian leader travelled to the UN
headquarters was in 2015.
In the
security council, the balance of diplomatic forces is less clearcut than in the
general assembly. The division of five permanent members: US, UK, France,
Russia, China, has hardened considerably, with China regularly echoing Russian
talking points in the council. The ten non-permanent members are elected for
two year terms by the general assembly. Among the current batch, Mozambique,
the United Arab Emirates and Gabon have generally stayed neutral over the
Ukraine invasion.
Brazil is
moving into the neutral column. Polyanskiy said the “Brics” group of Brazil,
Russia, India, China and South Africa was drawing closer together and claimed
there were 20 other countries interested in affiliation.
Richard
Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, said that under
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil was “making an effort to engage
with Russia and position itself as a potential peacemaker over Ukraine”.
“I don’t
think Russia has many close allies in the council, but a lot of council members
really want to avoid getting caught up in big power games,” Gowan said. “There
is a definite sense that a lot of council members want to shift attention to
crises other than Ukraine where the UN may be able to do marginally more good.”
There are
no security council sessions on Ukraine planned for April, but nine members can
vote to force it on to the agenda, or members can hold informal sessions on the
subject.
The glaring
council impasse and paralysis over Ukraine has served to elevate the importance
of the general assembly, but few expect it to bring any long-awaited reform to
the running of the council, established by the victors of the second world war.
More
likely, Kyslytsya acknowledged, “everybody will get accustomed to this new
level of global hypocrisy”.
“That will
be a disgrace,” he added. “But I think there’s quite a chance that may happen.”
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