UN General Assembly suspends Russia from Human Rights Council

The UN General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the global body's Human Rights Council as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine.

The high-profile rebuke of Moscow marked only the second ever suspension of a country from the council. Libya was the first, in 2011.

Of the 193 members of the assembly, 93 voted in favour of suspension as proposed by the United States, while 24 voted against. Fifty-eight abstained and the remainder did not participate, suggesting a weakening international unity against Russia at the United Nations.

Suspension required support from two-thirds of the member countries casting for or against; the abstentions and absences did not count.

Russia swiftly rejected the suspension, with its foreign ministry blasting the move as "illegal and politically motivated, aimed at ostentatiously punishing a sovereign UN member state that pursues an independent domestic and foreign policy."

But US President Joe Biden's top diplomat said Moscow got what it deserved.

"Today, a wrong was righted," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Brussels, where he met foreign ministers from NATO and said Russia was carrying out "atrocities" in Ukraine.

"A country that is perpetrating gross and systematic violations of human rights should not sit on a body whose job it is to protect those rights," he said.

Countries voting against included China, a Moscow ally which has steadfastly abstained from criticising the invasion. Others were Iran, the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and communist Cuba, as well as Russia itself, Belarus and Syria.

Despite pressure from Moscow for a no vote, several African countries only abstained, such as South Africa and Senegal. Also abstaining were Brazil, Mexico and India.

The UN Human Rights Council was founded in 2006 and is composed of 47 member states chosen by the General Assembly.

Washington argues that the punishment -- suspending Russia from the Geneva-based organisation that is the United Nations' main human rights monitor -- is more than symbolic and in fact intensifies Russia's isolation after the assault on Ukraine that began February 24.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also called for Russia to be expelled from the UN Security Council "so it cannot block decisions about its own aggression, its own war."