Sarcasm Check: Russian President Who Initiated War With Ukraine, Now To Head ‘UN Peace Body’

Amidst the criminal charges on Russian President, Vladimir Putin by the International Court, the president is now going to take charge of the UN Security Council. This charge comes in rotation to the 15 members of the council. Interesting is the fact that this presidency is nowhere affected by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

“Taking absurdity to a new level,” says Ukraine

Russia is the nation that actually started the war with Ukraine. The agenda of the UN Security Council is to maintain peace and resolve conflict but the Russian president is the human version of conflict these days. This is a sharp contradiction due to which Ukrainian permanent representative, Sergiy Kyslytsya said, “As of 1 April, they’re taking the level of absurdity to a new level.”

The ambassador said Ukraine would stay away from the Security Council in April except in the case of an “issue of a critical national security interest”. Ukraine is not a current council member, though it is often called to speak on issues related to the war.

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Disapproval comes from around the globe

No member state is known to be preparing any kind of boycott or other forms of protest, but the US, Britain, France, and their allies on the council are likely to show their disapproval by reducing the level of their presence at events hosted by Russia over the course of the month.

On Thursday, the US encouraged Russia to “conduct itself professionally” in the new position but added that there was no way to prevent Moscow from taking it. On Friday, the Kremlin declared that Russia intended to utilize all of its council rights.

Russia plans its month

Diplomats at the UN headquarters in New York point out that routine briefings and reports on UN peacekeeping operations around the world take up the majority of the council’s agenda in April, as they do every month.

“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 monthly inhabitant of the council does have the authority to organize its meetings, and Russia has three scheduled. It will conduct a briefing on the “risks resulting from violations of the agreements regulating the export of weapons and military equipment” on April 10. At this briefing, it is anticipated that it will single out the US for its recent arms shipments to Ukraine and other allies.

Later in the month, it will rule over two public discussions on “effective multilateralism” and the Middle East situation, with its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, likely to serve as the moderator.