U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield is seeking suspension of the Russian Federation from the Human Rights Council over Ukraine’s accusation that invading troops massacred civilians in the town of Bucha.

Thomas-Greenfield, who made the call while addressing the UN Security Council on Tuesday in New York, said Russia had been using its membership as a platform for its propaganda.

The Human Rights Council is a body at the UN charged with promoting and protecting human rights globally.

Two-thirds of the 193 members of the UN will need to vote in favour of suspending Russia from the council for committing human rights abuses for the U.S. push to be successful.

Ms Thomas-Greenfield made the move after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky briefed the council on the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

Based on available information, she said the U.S. has assessed that the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine.

The envoy said that behind the images of bombed out buildings, many people had “stuffed their lives into backpacks” and left the only home they had ever known.

She gave her own account of the refugee crisis in parts of Europe, having returned on April 4 from the Republic of Moldova and Romania.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia countered that his country had saved 123,500 people in Mariupol without any help from Ukraine.

He said any hope tied to the president’s election had failed to materialise following his launch of a linguistic inquisition against Russian speakers in the Donbas region.

In reply to accusations against Russian forces’ crimes in Bucha, he blamed Kyiv and the Western media for promoting “flagrant inconsistencies,” there were, in fact, recordings of Ukrainian radicals shooting civilians.

(NAN)