LUGANSK, January 30. /TASS/. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ remarks on Donbass and Crimea have exposed the appalling double standards of the world organization, a Russian diplomat told TASS.
"UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres practices categorical double standards by dividing nations into those who have the right to self-determination and those who, for some reason, are, in his opinion, deprived of this right. Notably, the criteria for such a division are clear only to him and evidently lie outside the legal sphere, in a political underworld where only he understands," said Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik.
He cited Kosovo as an example. "If it is about Kosovo, then, according to the UN chief and his legal department, it has the right to self-determination even without a referendum and without taking Serbia’s opinion on this matter into account. But when it comes to Donbass, they think that there is no such right, despite the two referendums and 12 years of blood-shedding struggle for the right not to obey the illegal putschists who seized Kiev," he said.
Meanwhile, Russian military expert Andrey Marichko told TASS that the United Nations’ position on Donbass and Crimea’s self-determination reveals the erosion of international law. "Since those legislative acts that were unshakable after the Great Patriotic War (of 1941-1945, or the Eastern Front during WWII where the former Soviet Union fought against Nazi Germany - TASS), when a new world order, new rules were established, all these organizations, like the United Nations, are now ignoring them and trying to serve their Western patrons. <…> This is nothing if not doublespeak," he stressed.
