Putin, charged with war crimes, takes over U.N.'s most powerful arm

Russia and, by extension, its leader Vladimir Putin took command of the U.N. Security Council for the entire month of April, giving him what other leaders warn is a prestigious stage to spread disinformation about his war against Ukraine.

The last time Russia was in charge of the United Nations' most powerful arm was in Feb. 2022, when the country launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor. And it's the Security Council that is supposed to bear the primary responsibility under the U.N. Charter for maintaining international peace and security.

In yet another twist, the council is being led this month by a country whose president is subject to an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

In March, the International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrants tied to the war in Ukraine, charging Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, with war crimes for taking children to Russia from occupied areas of Ukraine.

Though the council presidency is a symbolic position, and it is passed around based on an established procedure – each of the member nations take a turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of their names – Putin also has in recent days announced he will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Ukraine's northern neighbor, and his government arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, an American citizen, and accused him of spying. His employer and the White House have vehemently denied the accusations.

The council presidency allows a nation to choose major themes to be debated, and Russia is expected to hold sessions on the export of weapons and military equipment, children in conflict zones, and a high-level debate chaired by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on multilateralism and the U.N. Charter.

"We encourage member states to consider ways how we can build a truly multipolar world while maintaining the global balance of power," Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told a press briefing at the U.N.'s headquarters in New York on Monday.

"Some countries are pretending that they can decide at their own will who they want or do not want to be in the chair of the presidency of the Security Council," he said. "As long as the current world order with the U.N., the Security Council, stands, there will be no change in the rules of procedure and the order of the presidency is well-defined. It's not for them to change."

The 15-nation council reflects a power structure frozen in time since the end of World War II, giving five permanent seats with veto-wielding rights to Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. The other 10 are two-year positions.

'Obviously absurd and destructive'

Ukraine and the United States warned that Russia's council presidency this month hands Putin and his government a dangerously powerful platform to spread disinformation just as the war may be approaching a decisive turning point.

"Unfortunately, Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, and no feasible international legal pathway exists to change that reality.  That is what we are living with, currently," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a regular briefing with U.S. reporters in response to a question last week.

"As unpalatable as it may be to see Russia presiding over the council, the reality is this is a largely ceremonial position which rotates to council members month by month in alphabetical order," she noted. "And that’s what we’re seeing in April."

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that Russia taking the council presidency at this time is "like an April Fool’s joke," but the U.S. expects the Russian will behave professionally.

"We also expect that they will use their seat to spread disinformation and to promote their own agenda as it relates to Ukraine," she told reporters, "and we will stand ready to call them out at every single moment that they attempt to do that."

Last year, the United Nations, prompted by its own paralysis over the 12-year-old war in Syria and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, adopted a General Assembly resolution by consensus aimed at preventing Russia and the council's other veto-wielding members from abusing their power.

As a result, the General Assembly is now obliged to sponsor a debate within 10 days of any Security Council veto. The resolution is non-binding, so it lacks the power to compel any of the five permanent members to explain their vetoes.

But its passage was a rare example of a tiny nation – in this case, Liechtenstein – successfully taking on the U.N. power structure, and it also illustrated the depth of frustration with the council's power structure, which can stymie forceful action.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it "obviously absurd and destructive" to allow Russia, a "terrorist state,"  to chair the council.

Though it is up to the council to determine when and where a U.N. peace operation should be deployed, its member nations often are divided – seriously hobbling its function. That has led to seemingly endless calls for reforms to its power structure.

Those reforms are "clearly overdue," said Zelenskyy, "so that a terrorist state and any other state that wants to be a terrorist cannot disrupt the peace."