Crisis facing UN caused by West, senior Russian diplomat says

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Western stranglehold has caused imbalances in the activity of the United Nations and triggered its operational crisis, Kirill Logvinov, director of the Department of International Organizations at the Russian Foreign Ministry, argued. "Western attempts to instrumentalize the UN for their own needs have caused its operational crisis," the senior Russian diplomat wrote in a column for TASS as he called the Western stranglehold in the global body’s Secretariat and key posts insane. According to Logvinov, "work in the interests of all member countries based on the principle of sovereign equality was substituted with the promotion of approaches of the Western minority who usurped key posts at the UN and have been acting on instructions from their capitals." This, he explained, has caused "numerous imbalances and distortions" in the UN activity that have primarily impacted the organization’s efficiency and objectivity.