The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday suspended Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council over reports of "gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights" in Ukraine, prompting Moscow to announce it was quitting the body, Reuters reported.
Russia suspended from UN Human Rights Council
STEPANAKERT, APRIL 8, ARTSAKHPRESS: The U.S.-led push garnered 93 votes in favor, while 24 countries voted no and 58 countries abstained. A two-thirds majority of voting members in the 193-member General Assembly in New York - abstentions do not count - was needed to suspend Russia from the 47-member Geneva-based Human Rights Council.
Speaking after the vote, Russia's deputy U.N. Ambassador Gennady Kuzmin described the move as an "illegitimate and politically motivated step" and then announced that Russia had decided to quit the Human Rights Council altogether.
"You do not submit your resignation after you are fired," Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told reporters.
Russia was in its second year of a three-year term. Under Thursday's resolution, the General Assembly could have later agreed to end the suspension. But that cannot happen now Russia has quit the council, just as the United States did in 2018 over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform.
