UN Human Rights Council set to vote on restoring Russia despite ongoing Ukraine invasion

Russia’s desperate bid to rejoin the UN’s top human rights body will be tested in the General Assembly vote on Tuesday, more than a year after it was booted out for invading Ukraine. The 193-member assembly will be electing 15 members to the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, with candidates put forward by the UN’s five regional groups. Russia will be competing against Albania and Bulgaria to win back two seats reserved for the East European regional group and will need majority votes from the assembly. A total of 47 member states are part of the UNHRC based on the geographic distribution. The UN’s five regional groups have sent names to shortlist 15 members to the body. Experts told The Independent that Russia will try to lure African and other ally nations with stolen Ukrainian grain and arms in exchange for votes. World leaders have cautioned against bringing Russian president Vladimir Putin’s membership back on the panel amid the continuing invasion, especially with the latest attack on Ukrainian village of Hroza in Kharkiv. At least 51 people died in the missile attack, wiping out members from almost every family. While Russia says it does not strike civilian targets, A two-day-old baby boy was killed after a Russian missile struck a hospital in the city of Vilniansk, Zaporizhzhia. A child was also among the dozens killed when Russian missiles hit a grocery store and café in the village of Hroza. US’s deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that Russia’s re-election “while it openly continues to commit war crimes and other atrocities would be an ugly stain that would undermine the credibility of the institution and the United Nations”. Diplomats aware of the voting pitch by Russia to woo other nations using grains said that the US and others have distributed letters to many of the 193 members of the General Assembly, asking nations to vote against Russia. Moscow’s competitor Albania vying for the seat has also ramped up its campaign to join the UNHRC by highlighting Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. Albanian UN ambassador Ferit Hoxha said those who care about human rights and the “credibility of the Human Rights Council and its work” should oppose the nation which kills innocent people, destroys civilian infrastructure, ports and grain silos and “then takes pride in doing so”. International rights group Human Rights Watch has said Russia and China are unfit to serve on the Human Rights Council. “Every day, Russia and China remind us by committing abuses on a massive scale that they should not be members of the UN Human Rights Council,” Louis Charbonneau, UN director of Human Rights Watch said last week. The rights group said Russian forces in Ukraine continue to commit apparent war crimes, including unlawful attacks and crimes against humanity, torture and summary executions. It pointed out how Mr Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova are sought by the International Criminal Court for alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. Experts have warned against Russia’s pattern of “flagrant disrespect” towards international law as Moscow expected the world to turn a blind-eye to the latest missile attacks inside Ukraine. “Russia’s pattern of flagrant disrespect towards international law remains shockingly consistent. War crimes committed by Russia over the past months are no less cruel or widespread than the ones committed in Bucha in spring 2022, when Russia was suspended from the Human Rights Council,” said Anna Mykytenko, senior lawyer and the Ukraine country manager for Global Rights Compliance headquartered at the Hague. “Although now most of these crimes do not make it to the front pages of the international media, the aggressor state that keeps on committing war crimes and violating human rights cannot benefit from decreasing attention to the war in Ukraine and an opening to slink back into a UN Human Rights Council seat,” she told The Independent. Wayne Jordash KC, president and co-founder of Global Rights Compliance, said any attempts to allow Russia back to the seat of the Human Rights Council are “not only unacceptable and indecent but signify a dangerous global drift into untrammelled violence against the most vulnerable and innocent”. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary Putin’s shameless UN charm offensive - with stolen grain from Ukraine Russia tries to rejoin UN Human Rights Council Truss calls on Russia to be suspended from UN human rights council after ‘heinous butchery’ in Bucha Ukraine finds evidence of torture on bodies exhumed from Izyum burial site Russia should be thrown off UN Human Rights Council over its role in Syria, global coalition demands