All UN sanctions against Mali will end on August 31, after Russia vetoed the proposal by France and the UAE to have them extended. Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, said that the draft completely disregarded the concerns of both Bamako and Moscow.
The Franco-Emirati draft would have extended both the sanctions and the mandate of the UN Expert Group charged with monitoring Mali, through August and September 2024, respectively. It received 13 votes in the UN Security Council, but failed because Russia voted against it. China abstained.
The council rejected Moscow’s alternative draft, which would have ended the Expert Group mandate immediately and given the sanctions a “final” 12-month extension. Japan voted no, and 13 other members abstained.
According to AP, Moscow went after the Expert Group because its latest report criticized the Russian private military company Wagner, accusing it of “violence against women, and other forms of grave abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law” to “spread terror among populations.”
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