Diplomats walk out on Russia
A vacant room can tell a story. And this bare and desolate room tells quite a story indeed. It happened in Geneva. The UN Human Rights Council was taking place.
Sergey Lavrov was to speak next. For those who may not be familiar with him — he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia. He was to give a speech. The only problem was — not many would wind up hearing it.
You see — in love and solidarity with our brothers and our sisters in Ukraine — dozens of Diplomats just — left. They walked out. This was to signal their disgust with Putin and their loyalty to Ukraine. Ukraine’s ambassador led this walk-out to the United Nations.
And no mistake — Lavrov spoke. But he spoke to a mostly empty room. Most had already left, deliberately timing their walk-out to coincide with the speech from Lavrov, which was given by video. It was the repudiation seen round the world.
What was seen were dozens of empty chairs. What was also seen was a nation (Russia) increasingly cut off and alone because of its leader’s action. There were about 140 of them who left. There did remain in the room a few people but not many.
With the Ruble now worth essentially almost useless and nobody in Russia being able to access overseas bank accounts, Putin has genuinely succeeded in one thing. This thing is the single-handed ruination of his own country’s economy as well as costing his country the respect of everyone worldwide.