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UNITED NATIONS: It was the center of an emergency session of the UN Safety Council, late on the night of February 23, and Vassily Nebenzia appeared shaken — his face pale, his shoulders sagging.
Russia, the nation he represents on the United Nations, had simply invaded Ukraine, sending shock waves all over the world that proceed to reverberate right now.
At practically 60, Nebenzia — a bald man, massively constructed, who wears thin-framed glasses and sometimes fiddles together with his watch — was chairing the Council.
It was a surprising first for the UN: The person presiding over the august physique devoted to defending world peace was additionally the consultant of a nuclear energy now waging battle in opposition to a democracy…
Did he know, when he opened the session and sat listening as his colleagues delivered impassioned pleas for Moscow to drag again the armed forces surrounding a lot of Ukraine — that that they had already invaded?
Extra typically, does he imagine the phrases within the speeches he reads?
“I don’t know, however I imagine not,” one UN official advised AFP, talking on grounds of anonymity.
A number of ambassadors mentioned they shared that impression.
The Ukrainian ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, recurrently asks Nebenzia if he’s truly in contact with Moscow.
British envoy Barbara Woodward, a specialist in Russian and Chinese language affairs, reminded Nebenzia that “the good Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote: ‘Man is given not just one life, but in addition one conscience.’”
“I do know that you just’ve spoken beneath directions right now, however I ask you to report faithfully again to Moscow what you will have heard right now — the urgency of this Council’s requires peace.”
Nebenzia didn’t reply to an AFP request for an interview.
He has, in resigned tones, adopted his authorities’s line at emergency conferences of the Council since battle broke out, and additional periods are anticipated this week.
Beneath the exasperated eyes of his international colleagues, he has learn speeches denying media reviews of the destruction of civilian websites.
In impromptu replies, he has every now and then used the phrase “battle” — a phrase banned by Moscow in regard to Ukraine. However every time he has been cautious to notice that the phrase was first utilized by his boss, International Secretary Sergei Lavrov.
“The Russian system has by no means been as centralized,” mentioned one Western ambassador, talking anonymously.
Russian diplomats “are glorious professionals, however they aren’t able to work together with energy, they’re merely there to execute authorities dictates, whether or not concerned in making ready them or not — and normally not.”
On the UN, Nebenzia is thought for his deep mastery of the problems. His profession has taken him to Bangkok and Geneva, with a specialty in worldwide organizations. He’s fluent within the arcana of multilateral maneuvering and makes use of his deep understanding of process to his nation’s profit.
Exterior the generally theatrical jousting within the hallowed halls of the Safety Council, his relations with colleagues are cordial and well mannered — and have remained so for the reason that invasion, in keeping with a number of sources.
The ambassador is a person of tradition with a humorousness.
“I can do two issues on the similar time,” he advised AFP with a smile, after displaying the shocking potential to ship a speech in Russian whereas listening to its English translation concurrently on his headphones.
Russians are skilled on this multi-tasking, his aides say. That permits them to make sure that their addresses are rendered as exactly as doable within the language wherein most will hear them — and to right any errors on the spot, diplomats say.
At diplomatic receptions Nebenzia reveals a convivial facet. His favourite cocktail? “Half vodka, half Champagne,” he as soon as advised two French journalists.
Married and father of a son, the ambassador likes to take off on weekends on his European motorcycle — a solitary interest that goes nicely with the newly solitary standing thrust on him by the Ukraine disaster.
However he’s by no means removed from the drama as of late.
On February 28, throughout a information convention marking the tip of his month main Russia’s rotating presidency of the Safety Council, he abruptly interrupted the proceedings to reply his cellular phone.
After listening for a second with out talking, he hung up and introduced — adopting a tone of victimhood — that the USA was expelling 12 members of his diplomatic mission.
Sources in Washington have mentioned the 12 are spies — with no connection to the battle.
Diplomats later advised AFP the 12 are members of the navy.
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