UN, April 4. /TASS/. Moscow will insist on holding a UN Security Council meeting on Monday over the provocation in Bucha, despite Britain's attempts to refuse to organize the meeting, First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said.
"It is hard to imagine and realize, but the British presidency of the Security Council, which has just begun, is trying to deny us our right to request a separate Security Council meeting on the terrible Ukrainian provocation in Bucha. We requested the April 4 meeting at 3 P.M. (10 P.M. Moscow time - TASS), 24 hours before the scheduled meeting [on Tuesday] in full compliance with the Security Council's rules of procedure," Polyansky said in his Telegram channel.
"We will insist that the meeting be held on Monday, as requested," the diplomat said.
"We are shocked at the scale and brutality of the staging organized in Bucha in the best traditions of 'white helmet cinema,'" Polyansky pointed out, "Today's Ukrainian neo-Nazis are completely faithful to Goebbels' old Nazi school of provocations and are trying to shift the blame to Russia." He noted that "there are striking inconsistencies and mistakes in the production." "It has already been refuted on the Internet," he noted.
Polyansky added that the British are trying to use procedural excuses to reject the Russian initiative because another UN Security Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday on a broader issue. "They obviously want us not to bring this up separately because it would cause reputational damage to Western countries that have already accused Russia of killing civilians in Bucha. But it won't work, and the world will know the truth," he said.
Polyansky reminded the British that such actions are not worthy of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Russia, as chairman of the Council in February, "despite all the Ukrainian provocations and the tense situation on the ground, has not opposed a single meeting on Ukraine, no matter how much time has passed since its request." "London, on the other hand, has now compromised the presidency of the Council from its inception. We hope that the obvious commitment to respect Council traditions will prevail over dishonest tactical calculations," he concluded.
Two Security Council meetings
Ukraine on Sunday requested that the UN Security Council meet on Tuesday to consider, among other things, the situation in Bucha. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to speak at it. Later on Sunday, Russia asked the Security Council president to hold a meeting on Bucha.
According to Council procedure, the president is required to convene a meeting no later than 24 hours after receiving the request. However, the president can state that, for various reasons, he received the formal request much later than it was sent. As a result, the president has a formal right to convene a meeting later than the requesting country would like.
In addition, there is a practice where the president can decide to discuss related topics in the framework of one meeting of the Security Council without scheduling a second one within the required procedural time. The last time agendas were merged was in 2018, when Ukraine and Russia also proposed to discuss related topics.