Vitaly Churkin: A Sardonic Style, but Always Willing to Negotiate
21, 2017
UNITED NATIONS — On a cold February afternoon three years ago, Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador
to the United Nations, summoned reporters to the Russian mission on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Mr. Churkin, who died suddenly while at work on Monday after a decade as ambassador, had long defended Moscow’s staunch ally, President Bashar al-Assad
of Syria, even as Syrian forces blocked humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in opposition-held areas during the long, brutal civil war.
"His line of defense with the U.S. was ‘Look at your track record.’" A United Nations diplomat recalled
a closed-door meeting in which Mr. Churkin dismissed a suggestion to include women in peace talks.
Yet Mr. Churkin was among the first to seize on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where
Western nations are backing a Saudi-led military coalition battling Houthi insurgents.
Last fall, in an article on the military assault on Aleppo, Syria, I quoted Mr. Churkin as saying, through a Russian interpreter,
that Mr. Assad had shown "enviable restraint." He upbraided me publicly the next day.
Even after the public quarrels over the Syrian military assault on Aleppo, Mr.
Churkin agreed to huddle in a room with his French and American counterparts.
Mr. Churkin yawned, the diplomat recalled, and then he walked out before she could finish.
