Russia needs to be deprived of opportunity to abuse voting in UN Security Council, says FM Kuleba

Ukraine and its partners should work to prevent Russia from abusing its rights in the UN Security Council and use available legal instruments for this, Ukraine's top diplomat Dmytro Kuleba has said.

During an online discussion on the illegitimacy of Russia's status in the UN Security Council, the minister said that the Russian Federation will inevitably resort to abuses, having temporarily become the head of the UN Security Council, and will use them to peddle its own propaganda and push through illegal decisions.

Kuleba stressed that even "the very fact of the Russian presidency indicates that something is going wrong in the world security architecture."

He believes that Russia "must be cornered by the existing legal procedures so as not to be able to spread lies about the war in Ukraine and abuse its presidency."

From April 1, Russia is to take over the presidency of the UN Security Council for one month. The Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, proposed a three-stage process to prevent this from happening. Kuleba called Russia's chairmanship of the UN Security Council from April 1 a "lame joke".

Ukraine initiated the process of excluding Russia from the permanent membership of the UN Security Council with the right of veto and from the entire organization altogether, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed readiness to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia, but with the consent of all parties.