Good manners at lowest ebb: Russia accuses Canada of libel

Russia on Thursday
accused Canada of indulging in Russophobic libel after Canada’s UN mission
annotated a letter that Moscow sent to the United Nations expressing seeking
support for its draft resolution on providing access to civilian protection in
Ukraine.

Russia’s UN
ambassador Vassily Nebenzia sent a missive to the UN on March 16. In course of
a Twitter spat, Canada’s UN mission added several remarks to the missive. In
one part, the Russian letter states on support for civilians in Ukraine: “Like
other members of the international community, we are gravely concerned about
its deterioration.”

On this, Canada’s
UN mission crossed out the first few words and altered the rest to: “We are not
gravely concerned about its deterioration,” and added “because we are the
primary cause.”

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Later on in the
letter, the Canadian annotation reads: “Do you think the UN membership actually
believes this?” Further, at the very end, Canada suggests an alternative
conclusion to the letter: “We want to you know just how little we care about the
human life we have destroyed.”

The annotation drew
a very strong response from Moscow. “Thank you @CanadaONU for this
kindergarten-level Russophobic libel!”

“It only shows
that your diplomatic skills and good manners are at the lowest ebb and gives an
idea why your country’s bid for a non-permanent seat in the #Security Council
was voted down twice in 20 yrs by UN membership,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, first
deputy permanent representative to the United Nations wrote on Twitter.

Relations between
Russia and Canada as well as other Western nations continue to plummet to new
lows since Moscow invaded Ukraine which it calls a “special military operation.”

On Friday, Russian
forces struck an area around Lviv’s airport in western Ukraine, mayor Andriy
Sadovyi said. Ukraine’s state emergency service reported that a multi-story
teaching building was shelled on Friday morning in Kharkiv. 11 people are said to have died in the shelling. The city of Kramatorsk was also shelled, killing two people and injuring six, governor Pavlo Kyrlenko said in an online post.