——– Both clash at UN over North Korea, Patriot missiles in Ukraine
DM Monitoring
NEW YORK: The United States accused Russia on Tuesday of firing at least nine North Korean-supplied missiles at Ukraine, while Moscow labeled Washington a “direct accomplice” in the downing of a Russian military transport plane last month.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood traded the accusations at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, requested by Moscow. Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine nearly two years ago.
“To date, Russia has launched DPRK-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on at least nine occasions,” Wood told the 15-member Security Council, using the North Korea’s formal name: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
“Russia and the DPRK must be held accountable for their actions, which undermine long-standing obligations under UN Security Council resolutions,” he said.
Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the US accusations, but vowed last year to deepen military relations. Russia has stepped up ties with North Korea and other countries hostile to the United States such as Iran since the start of the war with Ukraine – relations that are a source of concern to the West.
A Russian Air Force Il-76 fell from the skies on Jan. 24. Russia said all 74 people on board, including 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers en route to be swapped for Russian prisoners of war, were killed, and blamed Kyiv for downing the plane.
“We possess irrefutable evidence that a Patriot surface-to-air missile was used to carry out the strike, which leaves no doubt the Washington is a direct accomplice in this crime as well,” Nebenzia told the Security Council.
Russian investigators said last week that they had evidence showing that Ukraine’s military shot down the military transport plane with US-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles.
Russia asked the council to meet on Tuesday after it said Ukraine killed at least 28 people when it used Western-supplied rockets to strike a bakery and restaurant on Saturday in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine.
Senior Ukrainian UN diplomat Serhii Dvornyk accused Russia of misusing the Security Council “for disseminating fakes.”
Wood said the US was unable to independently verify the information – blaming an absence of independent media reporting – but laments all civilian casualties. He added: “To be clear, Russia is the only aggressor in this war, and the only one that could end this war today.”
Earlier, Judges at the top U.N. court found that Russia violated elements of a U.N. anti-terrorism treaty, but declined to rule on allegations brought by Kyiv that Moscow was responsible for the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
In the same ruling, judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Russia had breached an anti-discrimination treaty by failing to support Ukrainian language education in Crimea after its 2014 annexation of the peninsula. The decisions were a legal setback for Kyiv. The court rejected Ukraine’s requests to order reparations for both violations and only ordered Russia to comply with the treaties.
