Putin Says West Using Human Rights Program to Destroy Sovereignty of Russia and Other Countries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 21 – In a message to a Moscow conference organized by the Presidential Council on the Promotion of Civil society and Human Rights on the 75^th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Vladimir Putin says that the West has hijacked human rights as an issue and is using it to destroy the sovereignty of Russia and others.

            The Kremlin leader blames what he calls “the deep crisis” in human rights issues on “the continuing attempts of the countries of the collective West to use the doctrine of human rights for the destruction of the sovereignty of states and the securing of their own dominance” (kremlin.ru/events/president/letters/72773).

            “Unfortunately,” Putin continues, “in the course of the entire history of the conflict in the Donbass and Novorossiya, international institutions which are called upon to guarantee and advance human rights – the UN Human Rights Council, the Council of Europe, and others – have demonstrated their bias and inability to solve the tasks before them.”

            According to him, “today the demand for cardinal changes in the international community is taking shape,” one that calls for “ensuring a just approach to the realization of human rights which would be based on mutual respect and consider the specific features of the cultural-historical development of states.”

            Not surprisingly, Putin did not address the state of human rights in the Russian Federation during his time in power. But it is bad and getting worse according to all international rankings the Kremlin doesn’t control (ehorussia.com/new/node/29975 and moscowtimes.ru/2023/10/25/rossiya-ruhnula-dourovnya-afriki-vmirovom-reitinge-verhovenstva-zakona-a111126).

            Over the last eight years alone, Russia’s ranking has fallen more than 50 positions to 113^th among the 142 countries ranked according to the projection of human rights and basic freedoms. It now ranks alongside Liberia, Madagascar and Angola. It has fallen into the same group regarding the protection of other human rights as well.