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The United States plans to seek a vote this week to suspend Russia from its seat on the U.N.’s top human rights body, pointing to increasing signs that Russian troops may have committed war crimes in Ukraine, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Monday. Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat on the Human Rights Council in the wake of reports over the weekend about violence against civilians in the town of Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, after Russian forces pulled out. The reports have sparked a wave of outrage and condemnation against Russia. “We believe that the members of the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, and we believe that Russia needs to be held accountable,” Thomas-Greenfield said at a news conference in Romania’s capital, Bucharest.
She called Russia’s participation on the rights council a “farce” that “hurts the credibility of the council and the U.N. writ large” and is “simply wrong." Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he spoke Monday with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about events in Bucha and tweeted: “No place for Russia on the UN Human Rights Council.” “Ukraine will use all available UN mechanisms to collect evidence and hold Russian war criminals to account,” Kuleba said. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly in New York has the final say, and any resolution to strip Russia of its membership rights would require support from two-thirds of member countries that vote. Thomas-Greenfield told NPR the U.S. plans to seek a vote “as soon as possible this week, and possibly as early as Thursday.” She said her message was simple to the 140 assembly members who voted last month to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “The images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us now to match our words with action."
