This week, the United Nations sent a memo to staff members that lectured them about the appropriate terminology to use with regards to Russian activities in Ukraine.
According to the UN, all staff members are not to refer to the terms either “invasion” or “war” with regards to the Russian onslaught of Ukraine. Instead, the appropriate woke terminology is either “military offensive” or “conflict” for Russia’s murderous actions across Ukraine, which have afflicted innumerable civilians.
According to an email dated Monday, the UN Communications Department informed employees of “specific examples of language to use [and] not use at the moment.”
Per the Irish Times, UN staff are not to use the terms “invasion” and “war” with regards to “the situation in Ukraine” specifically.
Moreover, UN staff are also prohibited from “[adding] the Ukrainian flag to personal or official social media accounts or websites.”
According to the UN Communications Department, these decisions are designed to prevent “reputation risk” to the international agency, which has been dogged by accusations of inefficacy in the face of severe global crisis.
“This is an important reminder that we, as international civil servants, have a responsibility to be impartial,” the UN sniffed.
“There is a serious possibility of reputational risk that has been flagged by senior officials recently,” the agency continued, without alluding to the national origin of the alleged “senior officials.”
However, according to a spokesperson for Fine Gael, a political party in Ireland, Russia is flexing its might at the UN in order to influence “policy in a direction [that is] simply false.”
The Fine Gael spokesperson for European Affairs, Neale Richmond, also remarked that the present situation in Ukraine “is not just any war.”
“[Instead, it is] an illegal war of aggression, that should be condemned from a height by all members of the U.N. and the U.N. itself,” Richmond proclaimed.
