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UNGA resolution on reparations to Ukraine serves as a "fig leaf" to rob Russia — diplomat

The special session of the UN General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution on compiling an international register of damage allegedly caused by Russia to Ukraine, as well as recognizing the need for creating a mechanism to compensate for the losses

BELGRADE, November 16. /TASS/. The UN General Assembly’s resolution on reparations to Ukraine serves as a pseudo-legal "fig leaf" for the plunder of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves, Russia’s ambassador to Serbia Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko said on Wednesday.

"We paid attention to an important turn in the discussion in the Serbian media regarding the resolution the UN General Assembly adopted on November 14 to recommend the establishment of a mechanism to make Russia pay "damages and reparations" to Ukraine. The West needs this document only as a ‘fig leaf’ to camouflage the real aim - the plunder of about $300 billion in illegally frozen Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves, which should have been expected. For the umpteenth time, we are witnesses to double standards - and double morality - of the West, which never thinks about paying a compensation to Belgrade for the damage caused during the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999," the press service of the Russian embassy quotes the ambassador as saying.

"NATO’s bombings of a sovereign state led to a heavy loss of human life and large-scale destruction of infrastructure facilities. They caused enormous damage to the economy; the use of ammunition with depleted uranium poisoned the country's soil and groundwater for decades to come. Lawsuits filed by numerous individuals suffering from the consequences of the use of depleted uranium in the Serbian region of Kosovo and Metohija are also ignored. Exceptions are rare," Botsan-Kharchenko recalled.

The special session of the UN General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution on compiling an international register of damage allegedly caused by Russia to Ukraine, as well as recognizing the need for creating a mechanism to compensate for the losses. A total of 94 countries voted for the resolution, while 97 states did not support the document: 14 were against and 73 abstained.

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