Lavrov in New York: An unwelcome guest

Since Russia took over the presidency of the UN Security Council, there has been concern that the Kremlin is abusing this position. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is expected in New York today. He wants to chair a meeting of the council.

When Russia took over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council earlier this month, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell spoke of an April joke. Moscow’s UN representative, Wassily Nebensja, reacted slightly annoyed: “I’ll just ask one rhetorical question: ‘Who is it that says that?'”

But the fact that the aggressor in the Ukraine war holds the presidency of the most important UN body this month is a problem for almost all Western countries. Above all the USA. United States Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced: “We will take every opportunity to prevent Russia from abusing the presidency to spread disinformation and solicit support for these efforts.”

She then left the room in protest – along with the representatives of Great Britain, Malta and Albania – when earlier this month the Russian children’s commissioner Maria Lvowa-Belowa, who was wanted on an arrest warrant, was connected via video. It was the only major scandal so far during the Russian presidency.

“Platform for misinformation”

Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think tank says: “Russia has been using the Security Council as a platform to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine since February last year. I don’t think Russia will be able to gain any additional benefits from the presidency now to get his campaign.”

Even if he can understand the concerns, especially in Ukraine. Its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently described Moscow’s presidency as a “bankruptcy” of international institutions and repeatedly called for Russia’s exclusion from the Security Council.

“Russia could act even more destructively”

Gowan is skeptical, not only because it would not be legally possible to exclude the country against his will. He says: “If Russia feels rejected, isolated or banned from the UN, then the country could act even more destructively and use its influence to create even more problems, for example in Syria or Afghanistan. As difficult as it is: I think a Security Council with Russia is better than with Russia outside.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced that he will be in New York today. He wants to personally chair a Security Council meeting on multilateralism. There was already a fuss about the visit in advance: the USA refused Russian journalists who wanted to accompany Lavrov the necessary entry visa. The Russian foreign minister reacted with outrage.

A rather unspectacular session?

Nevertheless, UN expert Gowan assumes that today’s meeting will be rather unspectacular: “It is clear that Russia will use the meeting to accuse the USA of undermining multilateralism – for example through unilateral sanctions. Russia can be quite confident be that China will support that position. Some Security Council members, like Brazil, will try to find a middle ground. But at the end of the day, that won’t play a significant role in the history of this war.”

An apparently planned meeting between Lavrov and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres seems to be more important. It should go to the future of the grain agreement. Russia had recently repeatedly threatened to let the agreement on the safe export of grain from Ukraine expire on May 18.