Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in New York to take part in UN Security Council meetings today and tomorrow on Ukraine and the Middle East.
Mr Lavrov is also expected to hold bi-lateral meetings with UN member states.
Today’s Security Council meeting on Ukraine was requested by the Russian delegation to the United Nations, to discuss the flow of weapons from western countries into Ukraine.
Ahead of this meeting, the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, flanked by the envoys of 47 member states, including Ireland, gave a statement on the “hypocrisy” of the Russian Federation for calling a meeting on defensive weapon inflows to Ukraine when Russia was importing arms from Iran and North Korea for its attack on Ukraine.
“Today’s meeting is another attempt by the Russian Federation to distract from this war of aggression against Ukraine and its intensified campaign of systematic airstrikes killing civilians and destroying critical infrastructure,” he said.
Asked by RTÉ News if Ukraine could win the war, Ambassador Kylstsya replied that Ukraine would win, adding “not only Ukraine but all the democratic world”.
The Deputy Ambassador of the United States to the UN, Robert Wood, said Russia was using the Security Council as a “stage for its blatant disinformation”.
Asked by RTÉ News ahead of the meeting if the US would continue to support Ukraine financially, Ambassador Wood said the US would continue to support Ukraine “as best we can”.
“You know the internal situation going on in US Congress,” he told RTÉ News, “the administration is pushing hard because it’s important for us and it’s important for the world.”
A spending bill to support Ukraine is being held up in Congress by Republican lawmakers, over demands for stricter immigration controls.
At the meeting, Mr Lavrov accused the US of sending “old ancient junk” to Ukraine while most of the military budget remains in the US to “update the weaponry”.
He said the US administration was framing the war as a “profitable business venture” in a cynical attempt to get Congress to agree to the new aid package for Ukraine.
In his address to the Council, US Ambassador Wood told Council members: “No amount of conspiracy theories and baseless accusations erase the fact that Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity started this war.
“It is President Putin’s single-minded pursuit of the obliteration of Ukraine and subjugation of its people that is prolonging it.”
The Chinese envoy to the UN, Ambassador Zhang Jun, focused on the economic impact of conflict around the world saying “the Ukraine crisis and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have added snow to the icy cold global economy.”
