WASHINGTON, May 7. /TASS/. Washington expects no changes in Russia’s status as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council at the moment but will continue efforts to isolate Moscow, UN Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an interview with PBS.
"I’m very aware and very sympathetic to the Ukrainian president’s view that the Council has been, in his view, slow to act, but we have been taking pretty aggressive actions against the Russians since this started, and we will continue to do that," she pointed out.
"I’m also aware of their [Ukraine’s] request to re-look at Russia’s permanent seat on the Security Council. But again, the Russians have the permanent seat, and I don’t see at the moment that there will be any changes in that, but we will continue in our efforts to isolate them," Thomas-Greenfield added.
She went on to say that Russia "threatened to use nuclear weapons before." "They’ve also used false flag accusations against the United States and the Ukrainians in terms of use of chemical weapons, and we know that they are capable of using chemical weapons," Thomas-Greenfiled said, adding: "They’ve used them in Syria. So we have to take the threat seriously."
The Russian embassy in the US stated earlier that Washington’s allegations of Russia violating the Chemical Weapons Convention were groundless. Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov, in turn, said that the Ukrainian Security Service, backed by Western countries, was plotting a false flag operation involving toxic substances against civilians in order to blame it on Russia. Konashenkov stressed that Russian troops taking part in a special military operation in Ukraine did not have chemical weapons.