Envoys from several Western countries walked out of a United Nations meeting on Wednesday with the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, who is sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over war charges, accusing her of spreading “disinformation” about the war in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.
Lvova-Belova appeared virtually at the informal meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, called by Russia to discuss the “evacuation” of Ukrainian children from the conflict zone. Russia took over the rotating Security Council presidency on April 1.
“As Russia takes on the presidency of the Security Council, we will use every opportunity to push back on their using their perch in the chair to spread disinformation and to use their chair to push support of their efforts,” the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters ahead of the meeting.
“So, it’s for that reason today that we have opposed their Arria-Formula briefer, a woman who has been charged with war crimes, who has been involved in deporting and removal of children from their homes to Russia,” she continued.
Thomas-Greenfield added the US, like the UK, had blocked the webcast of the meeting, so Lvova-Belova was not given “an international podium to spread disinformation and to try to defend her horrible actions that are taking place in Ukraine.”
Representatives of the United States, Britain, Albania and Malta, walked out of the conference room as Lvova-Belova was speaking, with Russia’s UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia describing the move as “a clear demonstration of their indifference to the fate of the children of Donbas and Ukrainian children.”
CNN’s Florence Davey-Attlee contributed reporting.
