For activities that do not correspond to their status and, supposedly, unrelated to the war in Ukraine, the US announced on Monday the expulsion of 12 diplomats from the Russian delegation to the United Nations. The news was announced during the press conference of the Russian ambassador, Vasili Nebenzia, dedicated to analyzing the rotating presidency of the Security Council held by his country during the month of February, which ends this Monday. The United Arab Emirates will take over from Tuesday.
When he appeared before the journalists, Nebenzia received a phone call and after hanging up, explained what had happened, stating that he still did not know the identity of those expelled and the reason for their expulsion, and that those affected have until March 7 to leave the country. “I have just received the news that the US authorities have just declared people non grata to 12 members of the mission,” said the Russian representative. “It is a hostile action and a disregard and serious violation of the commitments of the host country [EE UU]” towards foreigners who work in the United Nations, Nebenzia said, assuring that Moscow will respond reciprocally. The Russian mission is made up of a hundred people.
The US confirmed the news and denied that it breached its commitments to the Host Country Agreement that governs the presence of the UN headquarters in US territory, given that these 12 people are “intelligence agents” who have “abused their residence privileges by engaging in espionage activities that are detrimental “to the national security of the United States.” This is an action that has been “developing for several months,” specified the US spokeswoman, Olivia Dalton, implying that the measure has nothing to do with the current situation in Ukraine.
In his appearance before the media, Ambassador Nebenzia again rejected the use of the word ‘war’ to name the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine, aimed at “demilitarizing and denazifying” the country, as the Russian president called it, Vladimir Putin, in the early hours of Thursday. The diplomat again blamed the Kiev authorities for the conflict.
In a day of intense negotiating work at the UN headquarters, before which a protest against Russian aggression has taken place, a meeting of the Security Council has coincided at the request of France, to vote on a resolution that guarantees access to humanitarian aid of the Ukrainian population, and the extraordinary convening of the Assembly, the plenary of the 193 member countries of the organization. It is the eleventh in the organization’s history, and the first since 1982, after the Israeli invasion of the Golan Heights.
The meeting began with a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. António Guterres, secretary general of the organization, recalled the complete siege of Kiev and the attacks on civilian infrastructure, contrary to what the Kremlin maintains. “The mere idea of a nuclear conflict is inconceivable,” stressed the Portuguese. The 193 members will vote on a resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine similar to the one vetoed by Russia at the Security Council on Friday. That of the Assembly is not binding, but will serve to map the world’s position on the matter.
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“If Ukraine does not survive, let us not be surprised if democracy fails,” said Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergii Kislitsia, opening the speakers’ turn. “Save the United Nations, save democracy and defend the values we believe in,” he implored. Kislitsia accused the Belarusian government of “facilitating” the Russian invasion and compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. “The only culprit is the Russian Federation, which uses all its military potential to attack Ukraine, with missiles aimed at infrastructure [civil]like nurseries. Kislitsia interspersed English with Russian to address her counterpart Nebenzia directly, to whom she read a letter from a Russian soldier to her mother just before he died in combat about the horror of war. Kislitsia recalled that “Russia and only Russia” has started this attack against Ukrainian territory and stressed that the decision to invade has been made by someone who “is now in a bunker”.
The Russian ambassador, as he has been doing in the Security Council meetings – four last week – denied that they had civilian targets and denied the military offensive on Kharkov and Kiev. “The bombings on Kharkov should be verified and the explosions in Kiev are not true; I do not have information [al respecto], but our missiles are not hitting residential buildings,” he said, contradicting Guterres. Regarding the nuclear alert, “God forbid,” he stressed, maintaining that Putin declared it as a “deterrence.”
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