This means that the Security Council is run by a country whose president has an international arrest warrant for war crimes. The non-UN International Criminal Court issued the warrant for Vladimir Putin last month. Despite Ukraine’s complaints, the United States said it could not prevent Russia – a permanent council member – from assuming the presidency. The council’s other permanent members are Britain, the US B, France and China.
The role is mostly procedural, but Moscow’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nevantsia, told the Russian news agency Tass that he plans to oversee several discussions, including one on arms control. He said he will discuss a “new world order,” which he says is coming ” replace the unipolar one”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Koleva called the Russian presidency “the worst April Fool’s joke ever” and “a stark reminder that something is wrong with the way the international security architecture works.” He called it “a slap in the face to the international community”.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podoliak, said that the move is “another violation of international law, an entity that conducts an aggressive war, violates the norms of humanitarian and criminal law, destroys the UN Charter, neglects nuclear safety, cannot stand at its head. The main security body in the world.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky last year called on the Security Council to reform, accusing it of not taking sufficient action to prevent Russian invasion. He also called for the removal of Russia from its member status.
But the US said its hands were tied because the UN Charter does not allow the expulsion of a permanent member. “Unfortunately, Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and there is no possible international legal pathway to change this reality,” White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said.