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| Red Square in the city of Moscow, capital of Russia |
MOSCOW, May 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia will not participate in the special session of the UN Human Rights Council on “the deterioration of the human rights situation in Ukraine”, Russian diplomacy spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced Tuesday.
“The Russian delegation will not legitimize, with its presence, this new political spectacle organized in the form of an extraordinary session,” Zakharova said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, our arguments and clarifications about the real objectives of this special military operation [in Ukraine] and the real situation on the ground are completely ignored,” he lamented.
“Obviously [the Russians] would not be heard this time either,” the spokeswoman added, describing this session as “a new anti-Russian move by the ‘Western group’.”
The UN Human Rights Council will organize the extraordinary session on Thursday, at the request of Kyiv and supported by 15 other Council member states, including France, Gambia, Japan, Mexico, the United States, and Poland, and by over 35 observer countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Turkey.
This is the first meeting dedicated to this subject since the UN General Assembly suspended Russia, in early April, from the highest body of the international human rights organization.
However, with Moscow having anticipated its suspension by renouncing its membership of the Human Rights Council, Russia was entitled to participate as an observer country in the Council’s work scheduled for Thursday, May 12. — NNN-AGENCIES
