The UN secretariat denied media reports on Tuesday that the UN had banned its staff from calling Russia’s aggression against Ukraine a war or invasion.
“That’s not true,” Stefan Dizarik, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antoni Gutheresh, said on Twitter.
“This is not a case where employees are instructed not to use words such as ‘war’ or ‘invasions’ to describe the situation,” Dijarik said.
He recalled a tweet published on Monday by UN Under-Secretary-General Rosmaria Carlo.
“After almost two weeks, it has become painfully clear that civilians are suffering the most since the Russian invasion of Ukraine – dead, wounded, displaced. This war is pointless. We are ready to support all goodwill efforts in the negotiations to end this bloodshed,” DiCloo said.
An article entitled “Ukraine’s war has become ‘apocalyptic’ was published on the UN website on Tuesday, warning humanitarian organizations to call for secure access.”
The Irish Times reported on Tuesday that the UN had banned its staff from calling Russia’s aggression against Ukraine a war or invasion, despite a General Assembly vote openly on the side of the aggressor.
UN staff have been advised to use euphemisms such as “conflict” or “military attack” to describe Russia’s war, which has already claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians and displaced two million people.
An e-mail sent to the staff by the UN Department of Public Relations on Monday, The Irish Times, instructed them not to call the war in Ukraine a war or to add the Ukrainian flag to their social media profiles.
The UN public relations department says this is necessary to avoid “reputational risks”.
The Authority stated that officials in the international civil service were required to be “impartial”.
“There are serious reputational risks, as recently pointed out by senior officials,” the letter said.
These instructions have raised concerns that part of the UN bureaucracy is under Russian influence.
In fact, Russia reportedly forbade the law to call the war against Ukraine a war or an invasion, or any other appropriate name. Not only are all media outlets forced to use euphemism imposed by the Kremlin – a “special operation”, but so must ordinary citizens, who are now facing up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false news”.
The Russian authorities have falsified any information revealing war crimes in Ukraine, the killing of civilians, the damage suffered by the Russians and the resistance of the Ukrainian people to the invaders.
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