Russia went today to the largest international forum on human rights in Geneva to justify its war against Ukraine and turned a deaf ear to the calls of the international community to stop its military operation, while the European Union and the United States said that those responsible must be held accountable for their actions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the Kiev government of being “neo-Nazi” and mistreating and violating the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine since 2014, when a citizen movement achieved the fall of the then president, Viktor Yanukovych, a close ally of Moscow.
Lavrov spoke by videoconference before the Human Rights Council of alleged “Mass graves found in the Donbas region”, with deaths caused by Ukrainian bombardments against the Lugansk and Donetsk regionswith significant Russian-speaking communities, that eight years ago fell under the control of separatist groups that had the support of Russia.
the minister, who has been the head of Russian diplomacy for 18 years and is considered one of the closest collaborators of President Vladimir Putinhad planned to stand up to the Human Rights Council and present his arguments in person, but current sanctions prevented his plane from flying over several European countries en route to Switzerland.
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Lavrov inadvertently avoided the snub prepared for him by all the Western delegations to the Human Rights Council, joined by several from Latin America, who had planned to leave the room when he appeared on the rostrum. The action occurred but when the image of the message that I had previously recorded appeared.
Earlier, Lavrov appeared in the same way at the Conference on Disarmament, which meets in parallel in Genevato denounce as “inadmissible” the existence of US nuclear weapons in Europe and reiterate Moscow’s demand for NATO to present security guarantees.
Attack on essential infrastructure in Ukraine
A few hours later it was the turn of the United States foreign chief, Antony Blinken, who denounced the magnitude of the Russian attacks against urban centers in Ukraine, that have caused the massive flight of its residents to other regions of the country or to some of the countries on its western borderas well as hundreds of dead and wounded, dozens of them children.
“Russia bombs schools, hospitals and residential areas, destroying essential infrastructure that allows millions of Ukrainians to have access to drinking water, gas, so as not to die of cold, and electricity. It has also fired on civilian buses, cars and ambulances. Russia is doing this every day all over Ukraine”, denounced Blinken, through a video message.
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In the political field, the US Secretary of State asked the delegations at the Human Rights Council if Russia can continue to be a member of this body, whose main role is the promotion and defense of fundamental rights in the world, a mission opposed to the war launched by Moscow in Ukraine.
Neither Lavrov nor Blinken mentioned the negotiations held on Monday by representatives of both countries, coinciding with the fifth day of the offensive and that did not produce concrete results, since the delegates said that they should carry out consultations with their respective governments.
The only commitment was that they would return to the dialogue table in the next few days in the same place, the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.
150,000 Ukrainians have fled to other countries in less than 24 hours
Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told a press conference in Geneva that more than 150,000 Ukrainians have fled the war-torn country in less than 24 hours.
With these new records, the number of refugees who have entered one of the neighboring countries now reaches 677,000. More than half of them have managed to enter Poland, while 90,000 have reached Hungary, 60,000 Moldova, 50,000 Slovakia and 40,000 Romania, Grandi said.
Blinken warned that if the Russian government succeeds in overthrowing the government of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine, “the humanitarian and human rights crisis will only get worse.””. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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