US senators call for Russia's expulsion from UN Human Rights Council

A bipartisan group of US senators is demanding Russia's removal from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) following Moscow's "unprovoked, inhumane, and illegal invasion" of Ukraine.

Led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez and Jim Risch, the panel's ranking Republican, the lawmakers wrote a letter dated Monday to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US' UN envoy, urging her to introduce a resolution to remove Russia from the rights body.

It cites widespread casualties that have resulted from Russia's war, which the senators said has included "indiscriminate shelling of apartment buildings, hospitals, and schools and the slaughter of fleeing civilians."

"The multitude of crimes committed by the Russian Federation, and by Vladimir Putin himself, demonstrates that the Russian government has no intention of upholding international human rights," the eight Democrats and four Republicans wrote, referring to the Russian president by name.

"As such, it is time we consider whether the Russian Federation deserves to reap benefits from an organization whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world," they added.

The senators said a UNHRC member can be removed from the body via a two-thirds vote in the UN General Assembly if they have engaged "in a pattern of gross and systemic abuses."

Russia began its war on Ukraine on Feb. 24. Nearly 1,200 civilians have been killed in the roughly one month since, and 1,860 have been injured, according to the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The office continues to note that the true toll is likely much higher due to delays in access to areas of heightened hostilities.

More than 3.9 million Ukrainians have also fled the violence to find refuge in several European countries, with millions more displaced inside the country, according to the UN refugee agency.