UNITED NATIONS, May 11. /TASS/. Russia demands that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres make sure the organization doesn’t give any money from its regular budget to the International Criminal Court, Maria Zabolotskaya, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, said on Thursday.
"We would like to emphasize that the ICC, as a puppet and politicized organization established based on an agreement between a limited number of countries, as a matter of principle shouldn’t be able to interfere with the normal functioning of the UN and its agencies," she said at a Security Council meeting. "Not a single kopeck from the organization’s regular budget should go toward that puppet tribunal. We demand that the secretary general watch that closely."
"The collective West, without any hesitation, openly pays for the ICC proceedings to serve its interests. This is done under the guise of ‘voluntary donations,’ the amount of which has long exceeded the permissible limit for such financing and risks being on par with the ICC’s regular budget," Zabolotskaya went on to say. "The same Western countries send entire teams of national investigators and prosecutors to help the ICC by gathering information for it. Thus, the ICC has simply turned into an international window dressing, behind which the US and its satellites settle their political issues."
According to the Russian diplomat, the ICC’s only purpose is to punish countries that the West doesn’t like.
"Developing countries are beginning to think long and hard about pulling out of the Rome Statute. Russia made the decision in November 2016," she said. "We are calling on other countries that don’t want to bankroll this show to follow suit. We know for a fact that many countries harbor no illusions about this unjust and politicized organization.".