India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador TS Tirumurti has told the Netherlands’ Ambassador to the UK: ‘Please don’t patronize us’, New Delhi ‘knows what to do’, as the Dutch envoy said India had settled in the UN should not contain General Assembly on Ukraine.

On February 24, Russian forces launched military operations in Ukraine, three days after Moscow recognized Ukraine’s breakaway regions – Donetsk and Luhansk – as independent entities.

Since January this year, India has abstained on procedural votes and draft resolutions in the UN Security Council, General Assembly and Human Rights Council deploring Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“Please don’t patronize us, Ambassador. We know what needs to be done,” Tirumurti said in response to a tweet from the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Karel van Oosterom.

In the tweet, the Dutch envoy told Tirumurti: “You shouldn’t have abstained at the General Assembly. Respect the UN Charter.”

Tirumurti made a statement on Ukraine at the UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday. Posting the full text of his statement on Twitter, he said: “At the UN Security Council meeting on #Ukraine this afternoon, I made the following statement,” on which van Oosterom commented that India abstained from voting in the General Assembly would.

In April, India abstained from a US-requested vote at the UN General Assembly to ban Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over allegations that Russian soldiers had killed civilians while withdrawing from towns near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

In March, India abstained on a resolution by Ukraine and its allies at the UN General Assembly on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, saying the focus should be on a cessation of hostilities and urgent humanitarian assistance and that the draft did not fully live up to expectations New Delhi focus on these challenges.

On March 2, the General Assembly voted to reaffirm its commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, and strongly deplored Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

India, along with 34 other nations, abstained on the resolution, which passed with 141 votes in favor and five against from member states.