Russia convened this Monday in the UN Security Council a discussion on the “risks arising from violations of the agreements that regulate the export of arms and military material” that it used to accuse the US and the EU of illegal shipment of arms to Ukraine. Both have accused Russia of cynicism and attempted manipulation.
“Western countries continue to promote the concept of responsible behavior and increased control over the circulation of weapons. However, the crisis that they themselves provoked in Ukraine was a clear demonstration of the insincerity of their declarations of support for the efforts international organizations to fight the uncontrolled proliferation of weapons,” said Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia.
Nebenzia, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, also accused the United States and “its allies” of pressuring third countries to violate these third-country arms agreements with Russia “to increase the supply of weapons to Kiev”.
In response, the United States accused Moscow of scheduling this meeting “in a thinly veiled effort to portray Russia as a responsible arms control player, attempting to hide the reality that it launched an unwarranted armed invasion of its neighbor.”
He also pointed out that the Ukrainian conflict “is not a question about the export of arms”, but that it was invaded and has the right to defend itself.
“The international community has every right to continue to support the defense of Ukraine,” the US representative said.
For its part, France declared the convening of this meeting as “a blatant attempt at manipulation” by Moscow.
“It is incredible to see Russia worrying about the consequences of a war of aggression that (Russia) unleashed and is solely responsible for it,” said the French diplomat, who did not hesitate to describe the Russian ambassador as “cynicism.”
Likewise, both the United States, France and Japan accused Moscow of violating the agreements with the import of arms from North Korea and Iran, an accusation that Russia has denied.
China, for its part, avoided addressing the Ukraine issue and accused the United States, without naming it, of “transferring military products to non-state actors” and of having withdrawn from the international arms sales agreement during the presidency of Donald Trump, although President Joe Biden re-signed it in 2022.
After the appearance of the 12 members of the Security Council, Russia used its right of reply to deny all the accusations and to ensure that today’s debate was not aimed at discussing “the situation in Ukraine and the threat to continue flooding it with weapons”. .
“We expected a depoliticized debate (…) on the concrete risks created by the violation of international agreements in the field of the delivery of military material. These risks clearly exist and it is not at all our fault that the policy of Western states towards the Ukrainian crisis is clear proof of that,” he added undeterred.
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