$150 Million And Counting: How Much Trump’s Attorneys Have Paid For Trying To Overturn The 2020 Election—As John Eastman Faces DisbarmentWestern leaders criticized a Russian veto at a United Nations Security Council hearing Thursday that abolished a panel of experts that monitors North Korea’s compliance with U.N. sanctions on its nuclear weapons and missiles programs—a vote that came amidmeeting of the UN Security Council, March 29, 2022, at United Nations headquarters.
But Russia effectively abolished the panel with its lone Wednesday veto because all Security Council resolutions require unanimous support from the council’s five permanent members—13 of the 15 member countries approved the resolution, with China abstaining. The sanctions remain in place, but the panel will no longer conduct its work in monitoring whether or not North Korea is adhering to them.
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya claimed that the sanctions targeting North Korea were losing their relevance and “detached from reality,” and accused the panel of releasing “biased information” about North Korea’s programs—he called for an “open and honest review” of existing sanctions, accusing the West of trying to “strangle Pyongyang.”
But U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood said that the panel has conducted “credible, fact-based, independent investigations” of North Korea’s “unlawful weapons program and sanctions evasion efforts,” and he further alleged that Russian efforts to silence the panel come after the panel began reporting last year of “Russia’s blatant violations of the U.N. Security Council Resolutions” North Korea’s “persistent sanctions evasion efforts with Russia’s jurisdiction.