Defiant Russia shows up late to UN, walks out early

In a show of defiance towards Western condemnation, Lavrov arrived well after the council opened a special meeting to discuss the Ukraine conflict on Thursday. He gave his speech - accusing the West of forcing Russia to invade to protect itself - and then walked out.

“He has left the chamber - I’m not surprised,” UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the members after Lavrov departed. “I don’t think Mr Lavrov wants to hear the collective condemnation of this council.”

It was another moment of diplomatic drama at a venue that’s seen plenty of them over the years: the US-Soviet showdown during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s 2003 speech on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programme; a Ukrainian envoy’s warning the day the invasion started on February 24 that war criminals “go straight to hell”.

The scene was a familiar one for Lavrov, who was Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004, years when Russia and the US worked alongside each other in occasional comity and the council closed ranks around the US after the September 11 attacks.

But Lavrov, foreign minister since he left the UN job, has stood by President Vladimir Putin’s side as he’s become more and more isolated by the West. Thursday’s display highlighted the deep divisions that have emerged within the UN over that time.

Those cracks were evident at this week’s annual gathering of the UN General Assembly, and underscored how Western condemnation of Russia isn’t universal. China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, speaking at the same session, kept up his nation’s support for Russia’s right to remain on the Security Council and in the UN despite some nations’ efforts to get it expelled.

And perhaps more disheartening to the US, India’s Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, declined to call out Russia, instead urging a negotiated solution. India has declined to ally itself with the West’s campaign against Russia and has so far resisted a push to cut trade.

All that even though Putin, who skipped the General Assembly, accelerated the war this week with plans to annex Ukrainian territory and mobilise 300,000 additional troops.

Moscow has still struggled to marshal support outside the Security Council in the General Assembly, where numerous countries abstained from condemning Russia in an earlier UN resolution. This time, the General Assembly voted 101-7, with 19 abstentions, to allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to speak by video link at this week’s meeting.

In Lavrov’s telling, the Western condemnation simply amounted to a bid “to turn the world organisation into a forum for the demonisation of Russia and other countries that follow an independent line”.

Given the West’s decision to supply weapons to Ukraine, he called Russia’s invasion “inevitable”.