Despite Ukraine pleading with other council members to oppose the action, Russia has assumed the leadership of the UN Security Council.
On a rotating basis, each of the 15 council members has the presidency for one month.
In February 2022, when Russia last held the president, it started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It denotes that a nation whose president is wanted internationally for alleged war crimes is in charge of the Security Council.
The arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin was issued last month by the International Criminal Court, a non-UN body.
Notwithstanding Ukraine’s complaints, the US claimed it was powerless to prevent Russia, a permanent council member, from taking the helm. The US, France, the UK, and the US are the other permanent members of the council.
He promised to talk about the “new world order” that will “replace the unipolar one.”
The Russian presidency has been dubbed “the worst April Fool’s joke ever” and a “stark warning that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning,” according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
He also described it as “a slap in the face to the world community” in a later statement on Saturday.
Mykhaylo Podolyak, a presidential adviser for Ukraine, criticised the decision as “another rape of international law… an entity that wages an aggressive war, violates standards of humanitarian and criminal law, tramples on the UN Charter, disregards nuclear safety, and can’t lead the world’s foremost security organisation.”
Last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded that the Security Council be reformed or “dissolved entirely,” accusing it of not doing enough to stop Russia’s invasion.
He has also demanded that Russia lose its membership.Yet, the US has claimed that because the UN charter forbids the removal of a permanent member, it is unable to act.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House, said last week during a news briefing that “Unfortunately, Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and there exists no practical international legal avenue to change that reality.”
In order to defend its activities in Ukraine, Moscow would “continue to exploit its presence on the council to promote disinformation,” she warned.
