![Diplomats meet in the U.N. Security Council Chamber in 2019](/content/images/size/w1304/2023/03/un-security-council-chamber.jpg)
Putin, charged with war crimes, takes over U.N.'s most powerful arm
Russia's status as president of the U.N. Security Council, despite its leader waging an illegal war on Ukraine and facing war crimes charges, is bound up in a frozen-in-time power structure dating to the end of World War II.