China votes against UN probe of alleged Russian war crimes — Analysis

China votes against UN Human Rights Council’s investigation into Russian war crimes in Ukraine. It has changed its position from abstaining during the crisis, and is now voting against the investigation.

“We have noted that in recent years the politicization and confrontation at the [council] has been on the rise, which has severely impacted the credibility, impartiality and the solidarity,”Chen Xu is the highest ranking Chinese diplomat in the UN office at Geneva.

Chen made his comments before the Human Rights Council voted on Thursday – by a 33-2 margin with 12 abstentions – to approve a resolution calling for the war-crimes probe. Eritrea was not the other country to vote against. Armenia, Bolivia. Cameroon. Cuba. India. Kazakhstan. Namibia. Pakistan. Senegal. Sudan. Uzkistan.

The Russian allegations will be the only focus of the investigation. It won’t include the atrocities perpetrated in Ukraine by troops. Instead, the probe will examine events in Ukraine in Kiev, Chernigov Kharkov, Sumy and February. They will. “with a view to holding those responsible to account,”The resolution.

Russian control was established in areas that were under Russian occupation early on the conflict which started February 24th. “have experienced the most gruesome human rights violations on the European continent in decades,”Emine Dzheppar was the Ukrainian deputy foreign Minister.

Moscow’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, argued that the “collective West”Organising a “political rout to demonize Russia” rather than addressing the true causes of the Ukraine crisis and looking for ways to resolve those issues.

In a vote last month by the UN General Assembly, Russia was removed from the Human Rights Council. China also voted no in that case, but it had abstained on other Ukraine-related resolutions, including a General Assembly condemnation of Russia’s military offensive and a UN Security Council rebuke of Moscow.

Dai Bing (Chinese deputy UN ambassador) said that anti-Russia sanctions could backfire at the Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday. “Sanctions will not bring peace but will only accelerate the spillover of the crisis, triggering sweeping food, energy and financial crises across the globe,”He said.

Russia attacked the neighboring state following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Minsk Protocol (German- and French-brokered) was created to provide special status for the Ukrainian states that break away from their state.

Since then, the Kremlin demanded Ukraine declare itself neutral and vow to never join NATO’s military bloc. Kiev maintains that Russia’s offensive was not provoked and denies claims that it planned to seize the two republics.