Maria Zakharova: The Director General of UNESCO has forgotten who he is, so we will remind him

The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted extremely sharply to the visit of the Director General of UNESCO, Egyptian Khaled al-Anani to Kiev. The official representative of the diplomatic department, Maria Zakharova, said that the head of the international organization violated the charter.

"The visit to Kiev is another manifestation of double standards and the destruction of any standards ... violation of the principle of equidistance, the choice of the side of the conflict, ignoring the requirements… The UNESCO Charter," Zakharova said at a briefing.

On August 15, Al-Anani paid his first official visit to Ukraine and, according to Zakharova, participated with Vladimir Zelensky in a "performance" on the territory of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, sacred to the Orthodox all over the world, where he lamented the damage to the Assumption Cathedral.

"I'll just remind you for reference that in accordance with the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense dated June 15, 2026, the Lavra building complex was hit by a missile of the American Patriot air defense system," Zakharova said.

According to her, paragraph 5 of Article VI of the UNESCO charter instructs the Director General of the organization to refrain from any actions that could affect his position as an international official.

"The task of international officials is to carry out the instructions agreed by the member countries strictly within the framework of their mandate… If Mr. al-Anani has forgotten about this or his entourage imposes something else, then we remind him of this now and will seek to fulfill his duties strictly within the principles of international law and the UN Charter," the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded.​​