Russia is currently the President of the United Nations Security Council. A protocol position and that he will occupy during this month of April, which has generated criticism in the international community, even going so far as to request a boycott of the meetings. For Ukraine, seeing Russia at the helm of the most important UN body is “a bad joke,” it’s Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said this week.
The Security Council is the body in charge of “maintaining peace and security” in the world.
The Russian delegation will be in charge of managing the work agenda and chairing the meetings of the highest decision-making body of the United Nations, at whose head a Member State is placed each month based on a rotation in alphabetical order.
One of the main benefits of the position is that the Presidency can organize special sessions on matters that it considers particularly important and that are often attended by members of the Government. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to travel to New York to a chair at least two of these meetings.
Founder member
Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, along with the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom, which means that it has veto power in the body (that is, through their negative vote, permanent members can reject any resolution regardless of the number of positive votes).
The explanation of why these five countries have this privilege can be found in 1946. With the end of World War II, the five powers that emerged victorious from the war agreed to create the Security Council in an attempt to have diplomatic tools and a military to keep the peace.
Another privilege that these nations have is that they are the only ones that can legally possess nuclear weapons, following the New START treaty. Treaty that a few weeks ago Vladimir Putin himself said he rejected.
