Francesco Guarascio & Emma Farge

GENEVA/BRUSSELS – The World Health Organization will review a resolution next week against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. This could include the closure of a large regional office in Moscow. A document obtained by Reuters was shown on Thursday.

Three diplomatic and political sources stated that the resolution was not intended to impose harsher sanctions on Russia, such as suspending it from the board of U.N. Global Health Agency, as well as temporarily freezing its voting rights.

Following a request from Ukraine signed by 38 others, including France, Germany, and Turkey, the draft was prepared in large part by EU diplomats.

This is viewed as a Western political move to strengthen Moscow’s isolation. However, it does not have significant consequences for Russia and global health policies, something diplomats stated they are trying to avoid.

Referring to the Ukraine’s health crisis, this text condemns Russia for its military actions that it claims have caused massive casualties, disrupted health services, an increase in deaths from chronic diseases, and increased radiological and chemical incidents in Ukraine, and other regions.

Hans Kluge is asked by the region director to investigate the possibility of the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Non-Commicable Diseases (Officially located in Russia). From Moscow it now covers the whole region. The move does not mean the WHO’s Moscow office would be shut down. This was also established in 1998.

This resolution proposes a suspension of Russian meetings. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s chief medical officer, is to present a report regarding Ukraine’s emergency health situation to the annual World Health Assembly (WHA), in late March.

Russia is an EU member and has yet to respond to inquiries about the meeting or its agenda to the diplomatic mission of Geneva, where the WHO is located.

Russia refers to its actions in Ukraine as a “special army operation”, which is meant to dearm Ukraine and defend it against fascists. It denied targeting civilians. The West and Ukraine both claim the fascist allegation to be baseless. They also say that the war on terror is an unprovoked attack.

WHO Europe spokesperson confirmed that the draft resolution, which had not been officially published yet, would be considered at the May 10 meeting. According to him, Russia is expected to attend the session.

The WHO claims that there have been 191 attack on Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure in the time since Feb. 24th, resulting in 75 deaths. Tedros termed this toll “utterly unacceptable”. These attacks were not attributed to the WHO.

HARSHER MEASURES

According to sources, Ukraine has been able to withdraw Russia’s suspension from the WHO Executive Board. But legal technicalities meant that it wasn’t possible for Ukraine to freeze voting rights at the WHA starting May 22-28.

Although Article 7 allows for the freezing of voting privileges in cases of “exceptional circumstances”, this explanation has not been used often in WHO’s 74 year history. In 1964, it was put in place to stop apartheid South Africa.

A request for comment was not received by the Ukrainian diplomatic mission at Geneva immediately.

Russia was expelled from Geneva’s Human Rights Council over allegations of violations and abuses in Ukraine. Russia also was removed from U.N. World Tourism Organization. Russia insists that it has quit each.

Following discussions, a diplomat stated that WHO members concerned by harsher WHO sanctions against Russia may be putting greater health risk.

He said to Reuters, “It is different from economic zones.” “We don’t want a part of the globe to be affected by infectious diseases.”