U.N. to vote on U.S.-led resolution to expel Russia from Human Rights Council

“[There is] grave concern at the ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, particularly at the reports of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian Federation, including gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights,” the resolution states.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield has condemned Russia this week and said Moscow’s inclusion on the 47-member Human Rights Council is a “farce.”

“Suspending Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council is something we, collectively, have the power to do in the General Assembly. Our votes can make a real difference,” she said in a tweet earlier this week.

“We have all seen the gruesome photos out of Bucha, Ukraine. Lifeless bodies lying in the streets, apparently summarily executed, their hands tied behind their backs. Russia must be held accountable for this brutality.”

A two-thirds vote in the General Assembly is required to remove a member from the Human Rights Council. U.S. diplomats believe there is enough support among the 193 members of the assembly to expel Russia from the council.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during an emergency session about the Ukraine-Russia conflict in General Assembly Hall at U.N. headquarters in New York City on March 2. She is leading an effort to expel Russia from the Human Rights Council. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

Meanwhile, Ukrainian prosecutors who are investigating the civilian deaths in Bucha said they found evidence of torture, dismemberment and burning of corpses. At least one person was beheaded, they said.

“Every day we get about 10 to 20 calls for bodies like this,” Ukrainian prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko told The Washington Post.

Russian forces have now shifted resources and strategy to eastern Ukraine to establish control of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk — two pro-Russia, separatist-held regions that were a prelude to the invasion on Feb. 24.

Russia had stationed troops near the border with eastern Ukraine for months, and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared those regions, collectively known as the Donbas, to be independent just days before launching the invasion.

Russian Armed Forces Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Rudskoy had said that troops would transition from a nationwide attack in Ukraine and concentrate efforts instead on the “complete liberation” of the Donbas region.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Wednesday that the government in Kyiv is encouraging people in the Donbas, as well as Kharkiv, to evacuate.

“It is necessary now, because then people will be under fire and threatened with death,” Vereshchuk said, according to CNBC.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city that has been under constant fire since the war began, Ukrainian bomb technicians said they have found that Russian forces are now using sophisticated landmines that don’t even have to be tripped directly to explode. The discovery of the mines was reported by Human Rights Watch.

The newer POM-3 smart mines, experts say, have sensors that can detect when a person walks in the vicinity and detonate — and can even tell between humans and animals. With traditional mines, someone or something would set off the blast by coming into direct contact with it or clipping a trip wire.

“These create a threat that we don’t have a response for,” James Cowan, leader of the HALO Trust charity, said according to The New York Times.

The HALO Trust is a British-American group that clears land mines and other dangerous leftovers from past wars.

“We’ll need to find some donors to procure robotics that can allow us to deal with these threats at some distance,” Cowan added.