China has voted against a UN Human Rights Council investigation into possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine amid concern that the probe is politically motivated, shifting from its previous stance of abstaining on the conflict.
“We have noted that in recent years the politicization and confrontation at the [council] has been on the rise, which has severely impacted the credibility, impartiality and the solidarity,” said Chen Xu, the top Chinese diplomat at the UN office in Geneva.
Chen made his comments before the Human Rights Council voted on Thursday – by a 33-2 margin with 12 abstentions – to approve a resolution calling for the war-crimes probe. Eritrea was the only other nation to vote no. Members that abstained included Armenia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cuba, India, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.
The investigation will apparently only include allegations against Russia, not crimes allegedly perpetrated by Ukrainian troops, and will focus on events in the Kiev, Chernigov, Kharkov and Sumy regions of Ukraine in late February and early March. It will be done “with a view to holding those responsible to account,” according to the resolution.
Areas that came under Russian control early in the conflict, which began on February 24, “have experienced the most gruesome human rights violations on the European continent in decades,” Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Emine Dzheppar told the council.