“Shield” of Moscow and Beijing for North Korea at the UN. Russia said today Friday that the major powers should adopt a new approach to North Koreaaccusing the United States and its allies of escalating military tensions in Asia and seeking to “strangle” the politically isolated country.

Russia vetoed it in the annual renewal of the mandate of experts overseeing the implementation of long-standing UN sanctions on North Korea over its programs nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Moscow’s move which deals a blow to the application of a raft of sanctions imposed by the UN after Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, highlights the benefit Kim Jong Un has gained by moving closer to President Vladimir Putin amid the war in Ukraine.

“It is clear to us that the UN Security Council can no longer use old models in relation to the problems of the Korean Peninsula,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Zakharova argued that the United States inflame military tensions, that international restrictions have not improved the security situation and that there are serious humanitarian consequences for the population of North Korea or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as it is officially called.

“The United States and its allies have clearly demonstrated that their interest does not extend beyond the mission of ‘strangling’ the DPRK by all available means, and [πως] a peaceful settlement is not on the agenda at all,” he said.

The Russian veto is seen as a major turning point to the international sanctions regime against North Korea, established in 1948 with the support of the then Soviet Union, while the Republic of Korea was supported by the United States.

North Korea is the only country to have conducted nuclear tests in the 21st century — in 2006, 2009, 2013, twice in 2016, and in 2017, according to the United Nations.

Russia also argued that the work of the experts is neither objective nor unbiased, and how it has become a tool of the West.

“The Panel of Experts of the UN Security Council Committee 1718 has lost all standards of objectivity and impartiality, which should be integral features of its mandate,” Zakharova said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the experts “turned into an obedient tool of the DPRK’s geopolitical adversaries. It makes no sense to keep it in this form.”

Russia, Zakharova said, has unsuccessfully proposed a system of sanctions against North Korea with a “specific” end date so they can be reassessed over a fixed period of time.

“This system, which allows us to react flexibly to current trends in international and security issues, works for the majority of UN Security Council sanctions regimes,” he said.

China, which abstained from voting in the UN Security Councilwhere Russia vetoed it, said today that it opposes the imposition of sanctions “blindly” against North Korea.

“The current situation in North Korea remains tense and imposing sanctions blindly cannot solve the problem,” said Li Jian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry.

“A political solution is the only one [δυνατός] road,” he said, when asked why Beijing abstained.