If there’s one thing we know about Russia and its mendacious leader, it’s that you can never take anything they say at face value. Recently, Russia tried to pull a fast one at the United Nations. At the General Assembly, Russia sponsored a draft resolution whose ostensible topic was the raging coronavirus pandemic. According to an Associated Press story, the resolution called for U.N. solidarity at this time of worldwide crisis and urged an end to trade wars, protectionist practices and unilateral sanctions without U.N. Security Council approval (please do recall that Russia has veto power on the Security Council).
Russia’s resolution had the support of the Central African Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Ukraine were opposed.
The Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported on April 3 that Ukraine succeeded in blocking the resolution. It quoted Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.N., Serhiy Kyslytsya, as saying that Ukraine “blocked Russia’s manipulative draft resolution submitted to the U.N. General Assembly, which opened a window of opportunity for political manipulation, in particular lifting sanctions, under the guise of fighting the novel coronavirus.”
The Ukrainian diplomat told Ukrinform there were a number of reasons the Russian initiative could not be approved by the General Assembly. “First, the removal of trade barriers and economic security measures should be discussed at a specialized agency of the U.N. – the World Trade Organization – not on the margins of the General Assembly,” he said. Second, the proposed clause on the abolition of sanctions “destroys the logic of responsibility for gross violations of the U.N. Charter” and other norms of international law.
Third, Mr. Kyslytsya pointed out, Russia’s initiative was a classic example of propaganda camouflage: “On the one hand, Russians declare their intention to help other countries during the pandemic and, on the other, block the transit of humanitarian goods to Ukraine. In addition, they close the occupied territories of the Donbas for international observers and humanitarian aid and do not respond to threats of possible infection faced by Ukrainian political prisoners in prisons in temporarily occupied Crimea or in the Russian Federation.” Fourth, the lifting of sanctions should not be driven by the fight against a pandemic but as a consequence of “the termination of violations of international law by the aggressor,” the envoy stated.
Furthermore, “The Kremlin understands perfectly well that international sanctions do not affect the humanitarian assistance needed to counter Covid-19,” Ambassador Kyslytsya underscored. He added that Russia’s draft resolution in fact undermined the efforts of the secretary-general and U.N. member states who were seeking true solidarity in battling this pandemic. Ultimately, the General Assembly did approve a resolution, sponsored by Ghana, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland, that was titled “Global Solidarity to Fight the Coronavirus Disease.” Recognizing “the unprecedented effects” of the pandemic, it reaffirmed the General Assembly’s “commitment to international cooperation and multilateralism, and its strong support for the central role of the United Nations system in the global response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.”
The move at the United Nations was just one example of Russia using coronavirus for its purposes. On March 26, at a videoconference of G-20 leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that there should be a moratorium on sanctions, that there should be “green corridors free of trade wars and sanctions” to ensure supplies of medication, food, equipment and technology. (We direct readers’ attention to the news analysis on page 3 for more on this topic.)
In a statement issued on March 30, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba got right to the point: “Russia tries to persuade those around that sanctions limit its ability to tackle the pandemic. These claims are an imitation. No sanctions package imposed on Russia for its aggression in Crimea and the Donbas affects its ability to protect Russians from the coronavirus or to contribute to global efforts to overcome the crisis. Russia’s misuse of the pandemic for political purposes, its calls to lift sanctions are a dirty manipulation and an attempt to benefit from the suffering of millions.”
The good news is that hardly anyone is falling for Russia’s latest scheme.