“Unfortunately, throughout the history of the conflicts in Donbass and Novorossiya, international institutions designed to guarantee and promote human rights, such as the HRC UN, Council of Europe and others have demonstrated their bias and inability to solve the problems facing them,” the Russian head of state said in his address to the participants of the conference dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

At a UN Security Council meeting on October 31, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya said that on the territory of the DPR alone, from May 2014 to September 2023, more than nine thousand civilians were killed and more than 13 thousand people were injured.

According to him, the fact is also hushed up that the Ukrainian military, since the beginning of the conflict in Donbass in 2014, has been conducting targeted attacks specifically on critical civilian infrastructure. Over eight years, at least 50 thousand objects have been damaged, however, as Nebenzya noted, “none of our Western colleagues have said a word about this in recent years.”

The President noted that due to the “obvious bias” of these organizations, Russia was forced to renounce membership in them.

In April 2022, the General Assembly suspended Russia’s membership in the UNHRC at the initiative of the United States. Moscow, as stated by Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Gennady Kuzmin, views this resolution as an unlawful and politically motivated step aimed at “demonstrative punishment of a sovereign state pursuing an independent domestic and foreign policy.” He also announced that Russia had decided to terminate its powers as a member of the HRC early on the day the resolution was adopted.

In addition, in 2023, Putin signed a law terminating the international treaties of the Council of Europe for Russia, whose membership had previously been suspended. As noted in Ministry of Foreign Affairsthis has not had an adverse impact on the human rights situation in the country, since the Russian Constitution “guarantees a broader scope of rights than the European Convention on Human Rights.”