Switzerland: Member states of the World Health Organisation have voted to move a Moscow-based office of the WHO to Copenhagen, and urged Russia to stop attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine.

At the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, 80 member states voted to request the WHO secretariat relocate the European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases to Denmark before the new year. Alongside Russia, eight member states voted against the draft decision, including North Korea, China, and Belarus. Fifty-two states abstained.

A draft decision to relocate the Russian-based office was adopted on May 23 by the Regional Committee for Europe, made up of 53 states from the WHO Europe region, after a vote earlier in May 2023.

“Far from politicising the situation, [the draft decision] focuses specifically on the lingering health impacts of the war,” the Ukraine’s delegate noted, addressing the assembly before the vote.

“The full-scale aggression launched by Russia against Ukraine has triggered one of the largest health and humanitarian crises. More than 1,256 health facilities have been damaged, and 177 have been reduced to rubble, leaving about 237 health workers and patients dead or injured,” the Ukrainian delegate added.

Russia’s participation in the WHO, which is a UN agency, has been controversial since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In April, Russia took over the rotating monthly presidency of the UN’s security council. Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN described the situation as “absurd.”

A petition to remove Russia from the UN, drafted by Civic Hub, a group of Ukrainian and foreign lawyers and diplomats, has gained more than 300,000 signatures online and the support of several Ukrainian MPs.

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