Please, remember the track record of your country," he said. Please, remember which country you represent. representative, who built her statement as if she is Mother Teresa herself. "The weirdest speech to me was the one by the U.S. Responding to Churkin’s defense of Moscow’s seizure of Crimea, Power noted Russia’s rich literary tradition before saying that her Russian counterpart "showed more imagination than Tolstoy or Chekhov."Ĭhurkin, for his part, delivered a memorable rejoinder to Power’s accusation last year that Russia, Iran, and Syria were responsible for the atrocities occurring in the Syrian conflict. President Barack Obama’s envoy to the UN as relations between the two sides deteriorated over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. In the final years of his life, Churkin had several contentious exchanges with Samantha Power, who served as U.S. US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power argues with Churkin prior to a vote on a resolution on Ukraine during a UN Security Council emergency meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York on March 15, 2014. It fell on Churkin to deflect waves of criticism and denunciations of Russia from the United States and Europe in the ensuing years, most notably over Moscow’s seizure and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, its backing of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and its military operation in Syria. Less than a year after Churkin assumed his post, Putin delivered a now-famous speech in Munich that accused Washington of being a destabilizing force throughout the world and suggesting a change was needed to the "architecture of global security." His tenure in New York coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly assertive foreign policy as Moscow sought to shore up - including with the use of military force - its influence in the former Soviet Union and beyond. The ministry offered condolences to his family but did not immediately provide details on the circumstances of his death.Ī cagey and often combative official who was respected even by critics of his government’s policies, Churkin was a career diplomat who was deployed to defend the Kremlin’s line on a range of geopolitical standoffs over three decades, including the Soviet Union’s handling of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident and Moscow’s two wars in Chechnya.īut his most prominent public role was at the United Nations, where he served as Russia’s ambassador from 2006 until his death. They appealed to the public for donations to cover their legal costs, saying: "You know we are not criminals!"Īctress Larisa Krivonosova, who parodies an interior ministry spokeswoman in the sketch, was jailed for three months in October for violating restrictions on her movements imposed in connection with previous public order offences.Vitaly Churkin, a veteran Soviet and Russian diplomat who served as Moscow’s envoy to the United Nations as its ties with the West plunged to levels unseen since the Cold War, has died at the age of 64.Ĭhurkin’s death was announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said he died at work in New York one day shy of his 65th birthday. In a statement on Instagram, the ensemble said a month and a half had elapsed after the filming before "riot police rushed in, put us face down on the floor and confiscated all the equipment". He said the actors, from a group of satirists known as "Barakuda", had used legally purchased firecrackers, not explosives, and a local government inspector had certified there was no actual damage. Kletskin said the grounds for the case were "completely ridiculous". The charge came two weeks after the local interior ministry in the Ussuriysk region of Russia's far east announced it had opened a criminal case over allegations that the bus stop had been damaged. Another team member, producer Semyon Vavilov, was named as a suspect. The bag turns out to be filled with carrots.Īndrei Klochkov, who directed the sketch, was charged by police and could face 5-8 years in prison if convicted, his lawyer Alexei Kletskin said. 20 video "Vitaly Nalivkin prevented a terrorist act", in which the blundering official tries to destroy a suspicious bag at the bus stop by firing at it with a shoulder-launched grenade. More than 1.78 million people have watched the Sept. MOSCOW, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A Russian satirical filmmaker was charged with hooliganism on Wednesday and could be jailed for up to eight years over a YouTube sketch in which a fictional local official accidentally blows up a bus stop, his lawyer told Reuters.
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