In Ukraine, Moscow is waging an unprovoked war of aggression. Vladimir Putin faces an arrest warrant for war crimes in The Hague. But at the United Nations, Russia is about to take over leadership of a powerful international body, the Security Council.
As of Saturday, it will be Russia’s turn to take over the monthly chair of the 15-member council, in line with a rotation untouched by the Ukraine war.
The last time Russia held the gavel was in February last year, when Putin declared his “military special operation” on Ukraine in the middle of a council meeting. Fourteen months later, tens of thousands of people were killed, many of them civilians, cities were destroyed and Putin was indicted by the International Criminal Court for the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
Under such circumstances, placing Russia at the head of a world body tasked with “maintaining international peace and security,” not the least of which is Ukraine’s UN mission, seems like a cruel April Fool’s joke to many.
“From April 1, they will raise the level of absurdity to a new level,” said Sergiy Kyslytsya, permanent representative of Ukraine. “The Security Council, as designed, is immobilized and unable to address the issues of its primary responsibility, i.
The ambassador said Ukraine would stay away from the Security Council in April except on “a matter of critical national security interest.” Ukraine is not a current Council member, although she is often invited to speak on war-related issues.
The US, Britain, France and their Council supporters are likely to express their disapproval by downgrading the level of their representation at Russian-hosted events later this 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 every month, will be occupied by routine briefings and reports on UN peacekeeping missions around the world.
“It is important to protect the rest of the Council’s work on other files,” said a European diplomat. “We don’t want to disrupt the work that the council is doing elsewhere, because that would allow the Russian invasion to have an even greater impact on issues of peace and security around the world.”
True, the Council Presidency gives the monthly incumbent the power to organize their own meetings, and Russia is planning three. On April 10, she will hold a briefing on the “risks arising from violations of agreements regulating arms and military equipment exports,” during which she is expected to single out the US for its arms sales to Ukraine and other allies in recent years years.
Later in the month she will chair two open debates on “effective multilateralism” and on the situation in the Middle East, which her Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to chair.
The last occasion on which a permanent member of the Council conducted an unprovoked invasion was the US attack on Iraq. The US has not faced the humiliation of repeated overwhelming defeats at the UN General Assembly like Russia suffered last year, when about 140 of the 193 member states voted against Moscow’s positions, leaving Belarus, Eritrea, Syria and North Korea as Russia’s only reliable friends.
Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia Dmitry Polyanskiy denied that his mission would become a pariah at the UN. “Absolutely not. We feel like the West is contested at the UN right now because more countries understand our position,” Polyanskiy said, claiming that Western allies would have to water down the resolutions and rotate arms to get 140 votes “So I think the West is more isolated, but not us in the General Assembly.”
As for Putin’s arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, Polyansky dismissed it as “entirely irrelevant to our activities.” The last time the Russian leader traveled to the UN headquarters was in 2015.
In the Security Council, the balance of diplomatic powers is less clear than in the General Assembly. The split into five permanent members: US, UK, France, Russia and China has hardened significantly, with China regularly repeating Russian talking points in the council. The ten non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two years. Mozambique, the United Arab Emirates and Gabon of the current group have been generally neutral on the invasion of Ukraine.
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Brazil moves into the neutral column. Polyanskiy said the “Brics” group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was growing closer and claimed there were 20 other countries interested in joining.
Richard Gowan, UN director of the International Crisis Group, said Brazil under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was “struggling to work with Russia and position itself as a potential peacemaker vis-à-vis Ukraine”.
“I don’t think Russia has many close allies on the Council, but many Council members really want to avoid getting involved in big power games,” Gowan said. “There is a definite sense that many Council members want to draw attention to crises other than Ukraine, where the UN may be able to do some more good.”
No Security Council meetings on Ukraine are scheduled for April, but nine members can vote to put it on the agenda or members can hold informal meetings on the issue.
The Council’s glaring impasse and paralysis in Ukraine has helped increase the importance of the General Assembly, but few expect it to bring the long-awaited reform of the Council’s leadership instituted by the victors of World War II.
More likely, Kyslytsya conceded, “everyone will get used to this new level of global hypocrisy.”
“It’s going to be a shame,” he added. “But I think there’s a good chance this can happen.”