A U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine was delayed for nearly an hour and a half because Russia objected to discussing the human rights situation in the country’s separatist-controlled east and Crimea.
Once Friday’s meeting began, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told council members that human rights discussions should take place in the U.N.’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council. He said raising human rights was “an attempt to distract attention” from implementing the Minsk agreement that was intended to end the fighting.
READ MORE: Over 9,000 people killed in 21 months of Ukraine fighting: UN
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, the current council president, asked what Russia “seeks to hide.”
It was the U.S. that invited a senior U.N. human rights official to brief the council on Ukraine. Ivan Simonovic says more than 9,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in April 2014.
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