WASHINGTON — A stormy, angry session of the United Nations’ highest body on Monday heightened deep global rifts and raised new accusations about the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine, with the American and Russian sides harshly accusing each other of escalating the conflict.
The United States, backed by most Western countries on the 15-nation U.N. Security Council, requested the meeting and quickly came into bitter confrontation with Russia, backed by China. Russia accused Washington and its Western allies of “whipping up hysteria” and contending that Russia had no aims to again invade Ukraine.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., characterized the crisis over the former Soviet republic as dangerous for Europe and the United Nations.
“Russia’s aggression today not only threatens Ukraine,” she told the assembly. “It also threatens Europe. It threatens the international order this body is charged with upholding.”
Thomas-Greenfield revealed that in addition to the more than 100,000 forces that Russia has amassed along its border with eastern Ukraine, Moscow has begun to deploy what will amount to some 30,000 troops, armed with ballistic missiles and heavy weaponry, into Russian ally Belarus — just two hours north of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
That information, State Department officials said later, is based on U.S. intelligence reports but the officials would not publicly elaborate. While Russia has confirmed moving troops into Belarus for drills, the number Thomas-Greenfield gave was higher than previously mentioned.
“What would it mean for the world if former empires had license to start reclaiming territory by force? This would set us down a dangerous path,” Thomas-Greenfield said. Her use of the term “former empire” might have been a dig at Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom reestablishing his nation as a Soviet-style power is said to be the dream that motivates many of his actions.
Russia quickly, and angrily, denied the report of thousands of troops pouring into Belarus.
The Biden administration is “whipping up tensions and rhetoric and provoking escalation,” said Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the U.N.
“There is no proof” that Moscow is planning aggressive military action, Nebenzia said, turning to Thomas-Greenfield. “You are almost calling for this, you want it to happen, you are waiting for it to happen.”
Russia has repeatedly portrayed the military buildup, now flanking two sides of Ukraine, as routine exercises.
Nebenzia also condemned the U.S. over a 2014 popular revolt in Ukraine against a pro-Russia president who finally fled the country. U.S. support led to the installation of “true Nazis, radicals and Russophobes” in the Kyiv government, Nebenzia said. Russia portrays the protests and political upheaval of 2014 as an illegal, anti-Moscow coup.
After all the Security Council members gave statements, the American and Russian envoys asked to retake the floor, where they continued sparring.
“The provocations are from Russia, not from us,” said Thomas-Greenfield, who contended she could not let Nebenzia’s falsehoods go unchallenged.
The Russian criticized what he said was Washington’s refusal to look at past years of Moscow’s diplomacy involving Ukraine, such as 2014 protocols meant to establish a cease-fire with Russia-backed separatists who seized parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. But the rebels remain in the area and continue to battle Ukrainian government forces.
