GENEVA — World Health Organization member countries Wednesday voted in favor of a resolution condemning Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its attacks on health care services, in a move that Russia claimed wrongly politicizes the organization.
The symbolic vote at the ongoing World Health Assembly in favor of a resolution was backed by 80 countries, with 52 abstaining, nine voting against and 36 absent. Countries also rejected a counterresolution from Russia and Syria, with just 13 voting in favor. The rejection of Russia’s resolution was meant to “send a clear signal that provoking a health emergency of outstanding proportions and destruction of medical structures on a massive scale is not tolerated by this assembly and comes with a cost for the aggressor state,” Ukraine’s representative said during the meeting this week.
The WHO is typically neutral on political issues, preferring not to single out countries while condemning attacks on health care.
Speaking today, Ukraine said that Russia’s counterproposal — which doesn’t acknowledge its role in the impact on health care in Ukraine — was attempting to absolve the Kremlin of responsibility for the war.
The adopted resolution, co-sponsored by all EU countries except Hungary, is a repeat of a similar resolution that was passed in 2022. That resolution was backed by 88 countries. Today’s move follows European countries’ recent success in forcing the relocation of the WHO’s non-communicable diseases office out of Moscow.
Ukraine told the assembly that the war had seen 1,256 health facilities damaged, with 177 reduced to rubble; about 237 health workers and patients dead and injured; and 21 percent of all ambulances damaged or destroyed.
Europe has repeatedly moved to push Russia to the fringes of the world stage, with the latest resolution another attempt to denounce Russia’s role in the devastating war on Ukraine.
But Russia has argued against what it claims is an attempt to wrongly politicize a body that is meant to be neutral on politics. Moscow’s representative said that “the provision of medical care should be free of politics, so should the WHO,” adding that “Western countries are bringing politics into this organization.”
