Russia and China on Monday ripped the US during an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council involving America’s capture of Venezuelan despot Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
Russia’s representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, glossed over his own country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to claim the Trump administration’s Operation Absolute Resolve marked a return to an “era of lawlessness and US domination by force.
“There is no and can be no justification for the crimes cynically perpetrated by the United States against Venezuela,” Nebenzya fumed, according to a translation.
He commented on the US action even as Russia has allegedly made multiple attempts to kill or capture Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the four-year-long war that the Kremlin started.
China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Sun Lei, also denounced the US administration, saying it “wantonly trampled upon Venezuela’s sovereignty, security and legitimate rights and interests.”
Sun — ignoring his country’s flagrant dangerous overtures involving neighboring independent nation Taiwan — argued that no country should be acting as the global policeman.
“The US has placed its own power above multilateralism and military actions above diplomatic efforts, posing a grave threat to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean and even internationally,” the UN rep argued.
“We demand that the United States change its course, cease its bullying and coercive practices and develop relations and cooperation with regional countries on the basis of mutual respect, equality and non-interference in internal affairs.”
Russia, China, the US, the United Kingdom and France are permanent members of the UN Security Council, which is tasked with promoting international peace and stability.
The Security Council convened an emergency meeting to address the pre-dawn raid Saturday in which US special forces captured Maduro and his wife in Caracas and hauled them to New York City to face federal drug-trafficking and other charges that could potentially land them the death penalty.
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz gave a spirited defense of the operation, contending that Washington “arrested a narco-trafficker who is now going to stand trial.
“Nicolás Maduro is responsible for attacks on the people of the United States, for destabilizing the Western Hemisphere and illegitimately repressing the people of Venezuela,” Waltz argued during the emergency session.
“Maduro unlawfully refused to peacefully cede power after the Venezuelan people voted him out of office in the 2024 election. So therefore Maduro was a fugitive from justice.”
Waltz also defended the daring raid in Caracas as a “law-enforcement operation.”
Maduro and wife Cilia Flores made their first court appearance in Manhattan on Monday, proclaiming their innocence and pleading not guilty — with Maduro claiming he was “kidnapped” and is a “decent man.”
