UN, January 13. /TASS/. Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, called the arguments made by the United States and the United Kingdom at a meeting of the UN Security Council convened by the Russian Federation in connection with the attacks by Washington and London on Yemen, "blatantly weak."

"We are not surprised by the blatantly weak arguments that the United States and the United Kingdom tried to cite today to justify their aggression, because other arguments simply do not exist and cannot exist. Let me stress, there are no legal grounds for their attack on sovereign Yemen," he said.

"What right of self-defense are London and Washington talking about a thousand miles from their own borders? Since when did this right begin to extend to commercial ships, especially those sailing, as the US Permanent Representative herself confirmed, under the flag of third countries?" the diplomat wondered.

Nebenzya stressed that "the self-proclaimed coalition" does not have "any legitimate mandate for forceful action."

"It is one thing to protect commercial shipping, attacks on which are unacceptable, but it is completely different to disproportionately and illegally bomb another state," he concluded.

On the night of January 12, the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom carried out strikes using aircraft, ships and submarines against targets of the Ansar Allah movement (Houthis) in a number of cities in Yemen, including Sanaa and Hodeidah.

US President Joe Biden said that the strikes were carried out in response to the "unprecedented Houthi attacks" in the Red Sea. The targets included missile sites, UAVs and Houthi radar stations.

Following the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis announced that they would strike Israeli territory and prevent any ships tied to the country from passing through the waters of the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait until the operation in the Palestinian enclave was halted.