Lavrov defends Russia at UN showdown rife with anger over Ukraine war

UNITED NATIONS: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended Moscow’s war in Ukraine at the UN Security Council on Thursday as the United Nations warned Moscow against annexing Ukrainian regions and Western ministers called for accountability over atrocities.

Photo: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with his Uzbek counterpart Abdulaziz Kamilov in Moscow, Russia March 2, 2021. Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

Lavrov was only in the council chamber to deliver his address to the meeting of the 15-member body, which was attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Lavrov did not listen to anyone else speak.

“I noticed today that Russian diplomats flee as aptly as Russian forces,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Security Council meeting on accountability in Ukraine.

The council, which was meeting on Ukraine for at least the 20th time this year, has been unable to take meaningful action because Russia is a permanent veto-wielding member along with the United States, France, Britain and China.

Lavrov accused Kyiv of threatening Russia’s security and “brazenly trampling” the rights of Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine, adding that it all “simply confirms the decision to conduct the special military operation was inevitable.”

Read more: UN chief warns Russia

Ukraine’s Kuleba said: “The amount of lies coming from Russian diplomats is quite extraordinary.”

Lavrov said countries supplying weapons to Ukraine and training its soldiers were parties to the conflict, adding that “the intentional fomenting of this conflict by the collective West remained unpunished.”

Blinken pledged that Washington would continue to support Ukraine to defend itself.

“The very international order we’ve gathered here to uphold is being shredded before our eyes. We can’t let President Putin get away with it,” he told the council, which met during the annual gathering of world leaders for the UN General Assembly.

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