UNITED NATIONS, April 5 (Portal) – The United States, Britain, Albania and Malta have ditched Russia’s children’s rights envoy – who the International Criminal Court wants to arrest for war crimes – as she spoke via video to members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
Britain and the United States blocked the informal meeting on Ukraine, convened by Russia to focus on “evacuation of children from conflict zones,” from being webcast by the United Nations.
The diplomats exited the UN conference room where the discussion was taking place while Russian Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova spoke.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that the United States joined with Britain in blocking the webcast, leaving Lvova-Belova without an “international podium to spread disinformation and try to explain their horrific actions.” defend that are taking place there Ukraine.”
The International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, charging them with the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine and the illegal transfer of people from Ukraine to Russia since the invasion of Russia on February 24, 2022 .
Moscow said the warrants were legally void because Russia did not sign the treaty establishing the ICC.
Moscow has not hidden a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, presenting it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the war zone.
Lvova-Belova said that around 5 million Ukrainians, including 700,000 children, have traveled to Russia since February 2022.
About 2,000 children came out of orphanages and were accompanied by guardians, she said, adding that about 1,300 of those children have since returned to Ukraine, while 400 are now in Russian orphanages and 358 children in Russian foster homes.
“Russia claims it is protecting these children. Instead, this is a calculated policy aimed at wiping out Ukrainian identity and statehood,” British diplomat Asima Ghazi-Bouillon told the meeting, returning to the room after Lvova-Belova spoke.
During her statement, Lvova-Belova showed a video of Ukrainian children in Russia and then said: “I would like to emphasize that, unlike the Ukrainian side, we do not use children for propaganda.”
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told reporters last month that the informal meeting had been planned well before the ICC’s announcement and was not intended to rebut the charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova.
Diplomats have said it’s rare for a UN webcast to be blocked. However, last month China blocked the UN webcast of a US-convened informal Security Council meeting on North Korea’s human rights abuses.
Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Grant McCool
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.