Lavrov arrives in New York to chair UN Security Council meetings.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in New York on July 16 to chair meetings of the U.N. Security Council as part of Moscow's presidency over the body. Russia, which holds a permanent seat on the 15-member council, assumed the one-month rotating presidency on July 1 for the first time since April 2023.

Russia's envoy to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, said at the start of the month that Lavrov would arrive in New York once "visa issues are resolved." Later on July 16, Russia's top diplomat is scheduled to open a Security Council session dubbed a "Meeting on Just World Order," which Lavrov plans to use as a platform to attack the West and push pro-Russian propaganda narratives. One of the topics Larvrov said he would address would be demanding "the list of people whose bodies were shown by BBC reporters in Bucha," referring to the Russian massacre of civilians in the Kyiv Oblast town in 2022.

While the U.N. documented dozens of cases of summary execution of civilians in Bucha during the time of Russian occupation, Moscow has sought to dodge blame for the massacre. Russia's membership in U.N. bodies, namely its permanent seat in the Security Council, has been broadly criticized by Ukraine on account of the ongoing war of aggression. The one-month rotating presidency coincided with a Russian mass attack against Ukraine on July 8, which targeted the country's largest children's medical center, Okhmatdyt, in Kyiv.

Russia celebrates UN Security Council presidency, serves chicken Kyiv 1 day after deadly attack on children's hospital

The Security Council convened on July 9 to discuss the Russian attack in an emergency meeting.

Directly after the session, the Russian delegation hosted a celebratory lunch featuring chicken Kyiv on the menu.