Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is the new chairman of the UN Security Council – despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. Now Russia has the opportunity to influence the Union. – Whoever sits as chairman has the opportunity to set the agenda, says Anders Lidén, former top diplomat who has worked for the UN. It was on Monday that Lavrov took over the presidency of the Security Council. Completely on schedule as the countries rotate. – In the UN’s statutes, it is quite clear that all members of the Security Council sit for one month each as chairman. So every fifteen months Russia sits as chairman, says Anders Lidén. Russia now has responsibility for the international security order. Something that has upset many. – Now Lavrov sits there in a security council, representing a country that has put the security order out of whack. It is clear that many people are upset about this, including Guterres. Great opportunity to influence The chairman of the Security Council has the opportunity to influence a lot of what is said in the council. Russia has already started to do that. – They have defended the illegal evacuation of children by saying they were threatened and in danger. They have also criticized the West’s arms deliveries to Ukraine and describe it as the West escalating the conflict, says Lidén. Lidén, on the other hand, is not worried that Lavrov will be able to get one of the countries to change their opinion about Russia during the month he is chairman. – I think that we in the West see through him. I want to remember that a few months ago he made a performance in Geneva where he was laughed at. We do not accept many of these lies he peddles. “An actor” In an interview in “Malou möter” which was broadcast yesterday, Sweden’s former foreign minister Margot Wallström, who has met Lavrov, says that Lavrov is “his master’s voice”. That is, he obeys the incumbent regime. Lidén agrees with that to some extent. – Above all, he is an actor. But at the same time, it must be understood that many Russians, probably including Lavrov, mourn the fall of the Soviet Union and the fact that Russia was once a great power. After all, he is pushing this rhetoric that you have to have a world in balance with several different great powers where the West must not dominate.
t4-general