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The lonely envoy: Moscow's man at the UN finds himself on the defensive
Russia, the country he represents at the United Nations, had just invaded Ukraine, sending shock waves around the world that continue to reverberate today.
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Russia Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia waits for a UN Security Council emergency meeting, in New York on March 11, 2022. The Security Council is holding the meeting on alleged manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine at the request of Moscow. Russia on March 10, 2022, accused the US of funding research into the development of biological weapons in Ukraine, which has faced an assault by tens of thousands of Russian troops since February 24, 2022. (AFP/Timothy A. Clary)
I
t was the middle of an emergency session of the UN Security Council, late on the evening of February 23, and Vassily Nebenzia looked shaken -- his face pale, his shoulders sagging.
Russia, the country he represents at the United Nations, had just invaded Ukraine, sending shock waves around the world that continue to reverberate today.
At 60, Nebenzia -- a bald man, massively built, who wears thin-framed glasses and often fiddles with his watch -- was chairing the Council.
It was a shocking first for the UN: The man presiding over the august body dedicated to defending global peace was also the representative of a nuclear power now waging war against a democracy...
Did he know, when he opened the session and sat listening as his colleagues delivered impassioned pleas for Moscow to pull back the armed forces surrounding much of Ukraine -- that they had already invaded?
More generally, does he believe the words in the speeches he reads?
"I don't know, but I believe not," one UN official told AFP, speaking on grounds of anonymity.
