Russia on Friday lost its spot on the United Nations Human Rights Council, in a sign of international frustration with President Vladimir Putin’s support of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
Putin’s government was one of two to lose its reelection bid when the United Nations General Assembly voted to send 14 nations to the Human Rights Council, which has a total of 47 members.
“In rejecting Russia’s bid for re-election to the Human Rights Council, U.N. member states have sent a strong message to the Kremlin about its support for a regime that has perpetrated so much atrocity in Syria,” Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press.
The Human Rights Council is comprised of nations elected by region. Russia was previously on the council as one of the Eastern European States, but it was replaced by Croatia and Hungary. The Russian government acknowledged that the election results amounted to a rebuke of its foreign policy, but downplayed the significance of the race.
“[Croatia and Hungary] are fortunate because of their size, they are not exposed to the winds of international diplomacy,” Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said after the vote. “Russia is very exposed. We’ve been on council a number of years, I’m sure next time we’ll get in.”
Churkin’s American counterpart, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, has issued several passionate rebukes of Russia’s attacks on Syrian civilians in recent weeks.
“You don’t get congratulations and get credit for not committing war crimes for a day, or a week,” Power told Russian diplomats during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday during a debate about Syria. “The Ambassador from the Russian Federation said that if we needed to be preached to, we would go to a church. I think given what’s happening, it would maybe be useful if more people went to church.”
The United States was reelected on the strength of a platform that pointedly touted American support for human rights in Syria. “[T]he Council is now shining a light on the worst violations of human rights, including in places such as Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Iran, and helping create space for civil society to hold governments to account,” the State Department emphasized before the vote.
