Joly, other diplomats walk out during Russian foreign ministers speech at UN

Canada’s foreign affairs minister, along with other western diplomats, walked out in the middle of an address by their Russian counterpart at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Mélanie Joly says Canada wants the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into Russia for possible crimes against humanity.

Joly announced Canada’s intent in Geneva after she and dozens of diplomats left during the speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“Minister Lavrov was being broadcasted and giving his version, which is false, about what is happening in Ukraine,” Joly said. “And so that’s why we wanted to show a very strong stance together.”

On Monday, an ICC prosecutor issued a statement saying he had decided to open an investigation because he found there was a reasonable basis to believe war crimes and alleged crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine during the Russian invasion.

Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, Joly said that Russia lied to the world ahead of its invasion.

“They are trying to justify their war by spreading false rhetoric and attempting to manipulate the principles of human rights and to support their illegal and illegitimate violence,” she said.

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Joly is now heading to Poland — where thousands of Ukrainians fleeing violence are pouring across the border — as Canada sends more military aid to Ukraine.

She will join 50 Canadian airlift personnel at the Poland-Ukraine border to help ensure Canada’s latest supply of aid flows into the war-ravaged nation. Joly will also get an update from Polish counterparts on the refugee crisis at the border.

Canada is delivering $25 million worth of non-lethal military aid, including helmets, body armor, gas masks, and night-vision gear. A military plane is transporting the latest shipment of equipment to the country.

Joly’s visit to oversee the delivery of the non-lethal aid follows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Monday that Canada was sending anti-tank weapons and upgraded ammunition to Ukraine, which amounted to a significant enhancement in lethal military aid.

“We will continue to respond to the situation and to the requests of the Ukrainian government,” says Canada’s Defence Minister Anita Anand. “We are continually examining our own inventory to ensure we are supplementing the allied response to the very devastating situation.”

Canada will be providing 125 portable anti-tank weapons and two thousand rockets from the arsenal of the Canadian Forces.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians are attempting to get into Poland and the United Nations refugee agency says more than half a million people have fled from Ukraine to other nations since the invasion began last week.

“We are definitely examining the different processes that we can put in place as a government to expedite passage, to ensure safe passage for Canadians and others coming to Canada,” Anand said.

Canada has approved nearly 4,000 Ukrainians for immigration to Canada and Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says the federal government is working to ensure Ukrainians who are already in Canada on a temporary basis will not see their visas run out.

“We’ve made the decision to extend temporary status and issue open work permits to Ukrainian visitors, workers, and students who are already in Canada,” said Fraser on Monday.

“We expected upon reports of a potential further invasion into Ukraine that we would see the displacement of Ukrainians. That’s why we started preparing more than a month ago to ensure we had the ability to respond to a potential influx of people seeking to come to Canada.”

On Tuesday, the UN is expected to plead for humanitarian support for Ukrainians displaced by the violence in their country and those who are still within the country’s borders.

The federal government banned Canadian financial institutions from any transactions with the Russian Central Bank on Monday. In addition, Canada imposed an asset freeze and a dealings prohibition on Russian sovereign wealth funds.

Canada had already placed sanctions on Russian elites and politicians, including Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, as well as individual banks.

With files from The Canadian Press