Russia announced on Tuesday (4 April) that Maria Lvova Belova, Russia’s commissioner for "evacuating children in conflict zones", will be part of the meeting. These meetings cannot be held in the Security Council chamber. All 15 members of the council must agree to allow the United Nations to webcast it.

Last month, the International Criminal Court in Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. It also accused Lvova-Belova of illegally deporting Ukrainian children and unlawfully transferring people from Ukraine to Russia since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

A spokesperson for Britain’s U.N. mission said that she should not be allowed to use U.N. platforms to spread disinformation. She can give an account in The Hague if she wishes to.

Moscow has not hidden a programme that brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but it presents it as a humanitarian campaign in order to help orphans and abandoned children in war zones.

Russia’s Deputy UN Secretary-General stated that Russia will now block U.N. webcasts from similar meetings, citing the ‘UK censorship Clause’. On Twitter, Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy wrote.

Russia’s U.N. Last month, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said to reporters that the informal meeting of Security Council Members to be held Wednesday was planned well before the ICC announcement. It was not meant to be a rebuttal to the charges against Putin or Lvova-Belova.

Diplomats claim that it is very rare for UN webcasts to be blocked. China blocked last month the UN Webcast of an informal US Security Council meeting about human rights violations in North Korea.

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