Russian Foreign Ministry: Guterres has not answered a single one of Lavrov's 12 questions about Bucha

The UN has not answered Moscow's questions about Bucha, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has still not given answers to the 12 questions of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, concerning the events in Bucha, Ukraine. This was stated by Kirill Logvinov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's department of international organizations, in an interview with TASS. According to him, in April Lavrov asked the Secretary-General specific questions about the 2022 report of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, but 'we have not received an answer to a single one of them'.

The essence of Moscow's objections to the OHCHR report

Logvinov explained that the Russian side demands clarification on the methodology that UN experts used in preparing the document. According to him, Moscow questions the sources of the statistical data: 'Why, in preparing the report, did the UN officials borrow statistics from a single — Ukrainian — source, which is moreover no longer accessible', Life.ru quotes the diplomat. The report, Logvinov noted, contains figures ranging from 21 to 1,365 dead, and he considers such a wide spread a sign of inconsistent information. The diplomat also accused the UN leadership of a biased attitude toward Russia, which, in his view, explains the Secretariat's unwillingness to discuss the circumstances of what happened. He emphasized that the Foreign Ministry's correspondence with the UN Secretariat on Bucha has been published on the ministry's website, and called the topic 'a matter of principle' for Russia.

An alternative report and an appeal to Guterres

The Foreign Ministry recalled that the Russian side presented in New York a report by the International Public Tribunal headed by Maxim Grigoriev, a member of Russia's Civic Chamber, which challenges the conclusions of international investigations into the events in Bucha. Earlier, as Life.ru reported, Lavrov handed the UN Secretary-General a report 'Heirs of Goebbels: The Falsification of Events in Bucha and the Bloody Staged Performances of the Kyiv Regime', whose authors claim that the events were staged by the Ukrainian side; according to the outlet, Moscow expects that the document 'will be examined thoroughly'. In October, Lavrov again approached Guterres with a proposal to study the materials and revise the UN OHCHR's assessments. The Secretary-General's reaction to these appeals is not given in the publications; the UN's own position on the Russian Foreign Ministry's statements is not set out in the available materials.