UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador said Thursday he is “completely outraged” by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s comments in a prepared speech saying Russia has a critical role to play in ending the conflict in his country.
Volodymyr Yelchenko said Ban’s prepared comments for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia show he has lost “any moral right” to say anything about the conflict in Ukraine.
He said he doesn’t understand how the U.N. chief “can say such things which sort of praise the role of Russia in settling the conflict in Ukraine when the Russian Federation is the main player in aggressing Ukraine and in keeping this conflict boiling.”
In the prepared speech circulated by the United Nations, Ban said Russia as a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council has “a critical role to play” in addressing “pressing global issues, from ending the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, to safeguarding human rights and controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”
The United Nations later circulated the speech the secretary-general actually delivered which made no mention of Ukraine.