Russia blames West for Ukraine war at UN Security Council

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine at the Security Council Chamber at the UN Headquarters in New York on Monday. [TASS/YONHAP]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blamed his country's ongoing aggression on Ukraine on the United States' continued arms support to Ukraine during the UN Security Council meeting in New York on Monday.

“The key factor that impedes a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis is the continued support of the West to the regime in Kyiv,” Lavrov told council members on Monday.

“The Europeans should wake up and understand that using the Zelensky regime, the United States are not only waging war against Russia, but they are also dealing with the strategic issue of drastically weakening Europe as their economic competitor,” he added.

His comments, which lasted 18 minutes, were not well received by the council members.

Robert Wood, the United States’ alternative representative to the United Nations, criticized Russia for using the council to stage its “blatant disinformation.”

“It is cynicism of the highest order to claim that legitimate and lawful support for Ukraine’s self-defense is prolonging Russia’s war of aggression,” Wood said. “There are hundreds of thousands of Russian troops in Ukraine’s internationally recognized territories. There is not a single Ukrainian soldier on Russian soil.”

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN, Hwang Joon Kook, South Korea's ambassador to the UN, Wood, and 40 other envoys to the UN jointly criticized Russia in a media stakeout on the same day.

“We underscore the hypocrisy of the Russian Federation calling yet another UN Security Council meeting to criticize lawful arms transfers to Ukraine that are done in support of Ukraine’s inherent right of self-defense,” said Kyslytsya in reading the statement before the press on Monday.

The envoys called out Iran, Belarus, and North Korea for their support of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“We continue to urge all countries not to provide weapons and military equipment, including missiles and drones or other support for Russia’s war of aggression,” he said.

South Korean envoy Hwang, in the council meeting, specifically criticized the meeting between North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

“It is alarming that they were carrying documents accidentally spotted by the media that indicated their interest in continuing DPRK military cooperation with Russia,” Hwang said. “It is distressing to see that such a blatant violation of multiple Security Council resolutions is being committed by none other than a permanent member of the Security Council.”

Hwang also voiced concern that North Korea could, in turn, receive nuclear and missile-related technologies from Russia.

The council last met behind closed doors last week as the North hardened its rhetoric against Seoul and moved closer to Russia with the North's foreign minister visiting Moscow.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for South Korea to be designated the regime's top enemy in the constitution of the country, according to a report in the official newspaper of the North's ruling party last week.

The statement followed the North's launch of what it said was a solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile bearing a hypersonic warhead on Jan. 14.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]