Joseph Stalin's great-grandson writes open letter to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov

Selim Bensaad, the great-grandson of Joseph Stalin, wrote an open letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In the letter, Bensaad pointed out the need to dissolve the United Nations.

Being the last born Dzhugashvili, the great-grandson of the Generalissimo of Victory in World War II and the grandson of Yakov Dzhugashvili, who died in Sachsenhausen fascist concentration camp, artist Selim Bensaad is ready to personally support the Russian Foreign Ministry in convening a special UN meeting to decide the fate of the organisation and Russia's further participation in it as the successor of the USSR – the country that defeated fascism, he wrote in the letter.

According to Bensaad, the UN has proven its inconsistency in resolving issues of preventing the genocide of nations and entire peoples. The UN "allows the extermination of Russians” in the Donbass, and pursues a policy of double standards in the Gaza Strip.

Vadim Gorzhankin, the press attaché of the author of the open letter, indicated that UN headquarters should be moved to Moscow or Yalta, Crimea. Western diplomats use the visa regime as leverage to deprive Russian officials of an opportunity to take part in UN sessions in New York, he said.

Bensaad earlier asked Putin to rehabilitate Stalin

In December 2022, Bensaad appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin. According to the artist, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev launched an information wage against Stalin after his death. Khrushchev sought to dehumanise Stalin and make him go down in history as a "bloody dictator.”

In February 2023, Ombudsman of the Luhansk People's Republic Victoria Serdyukova said that the events of 2022 highlighted the issue of acts of genocide that the Ukrainian authorities had been committing against Donbass residents for years. The international community was turning a blind eye to violations of human rights in the Donbass for many years, the official said.

An independent international commission of inquiry into events in Ukraine announced a month after Serdyukova's statement that there was no evidence of genocide in Ukraine.

Speaking about the genocide in Gaza, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestinian territories, said in January 2024 that the UN must take action against Israel's illegal acts aimed at the extermination of the Palestinian people.

As of January 19, the confirmed number of those killed in the enclave amounted to 24,000 people, 70 percent of them being women and children, Albanese stressed. At the same time, in February of this year, the UN World Food Program announced the suspension of assistance in the Gaza Strip due to rising tensions and violence. The situation in the region will only continue to escalate and claim more and more human lives.

On June 28 last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Russia's exclusion from the Security Council, despite the fact that Russia was a permanent member of the organisation. In addition, the Ukrainian leader said that the Russian Federation should be recognised as a "terrorist state.” Moscow continues to participate in the activities of specialised UN organisations and enjoys the privileges of a permanent member of the Security Council only "because of the short-sightedness of politicians after the end of the Cold War,” Zelensky claimed.