(Moscow) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will chair a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York in April, the month during which Russia will hold the rotating presidency of the United Nations executive body.

“Another key event of the Russian presidency will be the high-level open debate of the (Security) Council on “Effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. This meeting will be chaired by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov,” Russian spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.

She said Mr. Lavrov also planned to chair a session of discussions on the Middle East on April 25.

Earlier Thursday, Ukraine had called Russia’s future presidency of the UN Security Council a “bad joke”.

“Russia has usurped her seat; it is waging a colonial war; its president is a war criminal wanted by the ICC for child abduction”, had castigated its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba.

Russia is due to take over the executive body of the United Nations from Saturday for a month, succeeding Mozambique.

At the UN, Russia says it faces the “collective West,” which has ostracized it from world nations since launching its military offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.

Mr. Lavrov’s last visit to the United Nations in New York was last September, during the General Assembly.