By Athena Papakosta

All eyes were on the special meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday. And that’s because everyone was expecting the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to look Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in the face. Would they talk? Would they clash or ignore each other’s presence?

None of this ultimately happened. The Russian Foreign Minister gave his position to the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, for as long as Volodymyr Zelensky would have the floor. He only attended when the president of Ukraine had already left the room.

Addressing the UN Security Council in person for the first time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia’s “criminal aggression” in Ukraine and, calling for reforms at the United Nations, also condemned Moscow’s right to veto the Council.

It had only been a few minutes since the president of Ukraine had spoken but the instruments had already started… earlier.

Russia’s UN ambassador protested the decision to allow Volodymyr Zelensky to address the Security Council for the first time. More specifically, Vasili Nebeznia accused Albanian President Edi Rama – whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council – of trying to turn the meeting into a “stand-up show of… one” adding, in fact, that it is nothing more than an… “event”.

Edi Rama, for his part, replied with a laugh that “this is not a special operation of the Albanian presidency” thus referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine which Moscow insists on calling a “special military operation”. He even added “stop the war and President Zelensky will not speak.”

During his inauguration, the president of Ukraine emphasized that he would not have come if he did not have a plan to propose to end the war that has now raged for 19 months. Of course, the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity remains firmly Kiev’s condition.

With particular interest, foreign news agencies note that as long as Volodymyr Zelensky was speaking, the Russian ambassador to the UN kept sneaking glances at his mobile phone, eventually putting it away.

When Sergey Lavrov took the floor, Volodymyr Zelensky had already left the room. The Russian foreign minister arrived when his American counterpart, Anthony Blinken, had the floor.

During his own intervention, Mr. Lavrov pointed his arrows at the West, underlining that he chooses to invoke the principles of the UN on a case-by-case basis and according to its geopolitical needs. While the Russian foreign minister was speaking in the room was the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Serhii Kislitsia, who was also looking at his mobile phone while Anthony Blinken was receiving handwritten notes.

In short, the atmosphere could be described as electrifying, to say the least. Of course, this year the same mistake as last year was not repeated. The Ukrainian and Russian delegations were not seated next to each other but far from each other. The only thing that remained the same as last year was the irritation and the fact that Moscow and Kiev did not want to breathe the same… air.