OREANDA-NEWS. The refusal of a number of Western countries to accept proposals to ease unilateral sanctions will complicate the overall rebuff to the coronavirus pandemic. This was announced on Thursday at the Permanent Mission of Russia to the UN, commenting on the refusal of Ukraine, Georgia, Great Britain, the United States and the EU to accept the Russian draft resolution on this topic in the UN General Assembly.

Earlier, the UN General Assembly adopted an alternative and more general draft resolution calling for "the solidarity of countries in the fight against a pandemic", which ignored the proposals of the UN Secretary General to lift sanctions. However, the Russian version with more specific measures has not been adopted.

“The consensus adoption of the document we submitted did not work. This was hindered by Ukraine, Georgia, Great Britain, the USA and the EU”, the diplomatic mission specified. Earlier, the UN Secretary General appealed to all countries with a call to combat the coronavirus pandemic to ease existing sanctions against a number of countries, as well as to cease hostilities.