Kremlin gets a red card from UN Human Rights Council

While the vote passed with 93 in favour and 24 against, 58 nations abstained – among them eight out of 10 ASEAN members.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, fifth from right, at the site of a mass grave during his three-hour visit to Bucha on Thursday. Picture: AFP

Russia has been suspended from the UN Human Rights Council over growing evidence of civilian massacres in Ukraine in a General Assembly vote that drew little support from Australia’s South and Southeast Asian neighbours.

While the vote passed with 93 nations in favour and 24 against, 58 countries abstained – among them eight out of 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nation member states, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Most Pacific nations supported Russia’s expulsion with the exception of Vanuatu, which abstained, and the Solomon Islands, which is striking a new security agreement with China and was absent.

The vote makes Russia the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to have its membership revoked from any UN body.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was “sorry about that (decision), and we’ll continue to defend our interests using every possible legal means’’.

He said Russia did not recognise the International Criminal Court and was “only interested in a really independent and objective investigation of all the crimes’’.

US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield initiated the push to expel Russia from the 47-member HRC after images of civilian torture and executions began to emerge from Bucha in the wake of the Russian retreat.

Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya with US counterpart Linda Thomas-Greenfield before his speech to the assembly. Picture: AFP

The resolution expressed “grave concern … at the reports of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian Federation, including gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights”.

Only The Philippines and Myanmar – whose envoy represents the ousted government of Aung San Suu Kyi and not the junta – voted to suspend Russia, despite eight out of the 10 ASEAN nations voting last month in favour of a motion deploring Russia’s invasion (only Laos and Vietnam abstained then).

Singapore’s abstention was the most surprising given its support, lone among ASEAN states, for western sanctions against Moscow and for earlier resolutions condemning the invasion. Several analysts suggested its refusal to support Russia’s expulsion reflected concerns it could draw attention to its own imperfect human rights record.

A Singapore UN envoy said the country was “gravely concerned and distressed” by reports and images of civilian massacres in Ukraine, and urged no effort be spared to protect civilians. But, she added, Singapore was waiting for the findings of an independent commission set up to investigate alleged human rights violations.

Almost as surprising was Manila’s decision to support Russia’s expulsion given allegations that the outgoing Duterte administration committed crimes against humanity in its war on drugs. Foreign Minister Teddy Locsin posted a bracing New Yorker article on the massacre in Bucha on his Twitter account, writing in capitals: “This explains our UN vote.”

The board showing the passage of the resolution during a UN General Assembly vote on a draft resolution seeking to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council in New York. Picture: AFP

Indonesia – which faces its own dilemma over whether to exclude Russia from G20 meetings it hosts this year – said it did “not take lightly” reports of Russian atrocities but that “due diligence” must be followed in investigating those crimes. “It’s important to have received all the facts before taking action that revokes legitimate rights of its members,” Jakarta’s envoy told the assembly.

Griffith University international relations professor Ian Hall said the lack of Asian support reflected a view that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “European issue to be resolved by Europeans and the US, and not a global one”. ASEAN was also “hypersensitive about setting precedents, especially on human rights issues”, he added.

Lowy Institute Southeast Asia program director Ben Bland said ASEAN members were generally reluctant to impose sanctions on other states in light of their “own concerns about their domestic human rights problems being called out at the UN”.

But Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson condemned ASEAN members for an “act of political cowardice”.

“They realised the US had the votes it needed for a two-thirds majority so they cut for the safe territory of abstaining,” he said.