Diplomats from dozens of countries staged a walk out on Tuesday during Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov’s addresses at the Human Rights Council and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in protest against Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine.
Representatives from European Union, the UK and the U.S. were among those that left the room during Lavrov’s speech, which was delivered by video message after he was unable to travel to Geneva.
“The Human Rights Council must not be misused as a platform for disinformation,” said German ambassador Katharina Stasch, who took part in the stunt on Tuesday.
“Foreign Minister Lavrov’s grotesque claims must be exposed for what they are, a cynical distortion of the facts.”
Lavrov, who joined proceedings by video link, read out a long statement in which he justified the attack on Ukraine by accusing the Ukrainian side of human rights violations.
He had initially planned to attend the meeting in person but the trip was cancelled because of the closure of European airspace to Russian aircraft.
The UN Human Rights Council began its regular spring session on Monday.
In his speech, Lavrov accused Ukraine of terrorizing the Russian minority in Ukraine for years.
He claimed Russian human rights had been violated in many ways, adding that the West had not only looked on, but supported this.
He mentioned the United States, Canada and the European Union several times.
Since mid-February, more than 100,000 people have fled to Russia from Ukraine’s far eastern Donbass region, where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting central government forces since 2014.
The government in Kiev wants to turn its country anti-Russia to please the West, Lavrov said, according to the UN translation of his speech.
