Fifth or not: the Russian Federation has not decided on the support of the candidate for the post of UN Secretary General

The struggle for the post of Secretary-General has intensified in the United Nations. A new, fifth candidate has appeared — former UNGA President Maria Fernanda Espinosa. The Russian Federation has not yet decided on the official support of the candidate, the Foreign Ministry told Izvestia. The Kremlin singled out the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, but his further support will depend on the situation around the nuclear power plant. Moscow has repeatedly complained about the impartiality of the assessment of the Ukrainian attacks on the nuclear power plant. Nevertheless, it is Grossi who remains the favorite of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. How the candidates presented are better than the current Secretary General Antonio Guterres and whether there are any questions about them — in the Izvestia article.

Who is running for the post of the next UN Secretary General

The election of the new Secretary—General of the United Nations is only a few months away, with voting scheduled for July. The head of the secretariat of the largest international organization will be determined by the 15 members of the UN Security Council, and then he will be formally approved by the General Assembly. Of course, the position of the permanent members of the Security Council is of the greatest interest: traditionally, they do not nominate their protégés in order to prevent a skew in the balance of power, but they can easily reject others by vetoing them. Russia has not yet decided who it will officially support in the upcoming elections, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov told Izvestia.

— So far, the Russian Federation has not expressed any official preferences regarding this or that candidate. We are monitoring the process: we still have enough time. We do not exclude the appearance of new candidates. We will determine our support and its public expression at a later stage," the diplomat said.

As the public hearings of candidates for the top post are underway, the race for him has suddenly escalated. A new candidate from the Caribbean state of Antigua and Barbuda, former Defense Minister and Foreign Minister of Ecuador Maria Fernanda Espinosa, has entered the game.

She also has experience working in UN structures: from 2018 to 2019, Espinosa chaired the General Assembly, becoming the fourth woman in history to hold this post, and the first from Latin America.

From 2014 to 2017, she served as Ecuador's permanent representative to the United Nations and other organizations. She managed to cause a certain resonance in the run-up to the elections. According to the Ecuadorean, the UN, which is facing a crisis due to funding cuts, must either transform powerfully or "die." This year, the UN has reduced its budget by 7% due to non-payment of US contributions. This time, American leader Donald Trump promised to allocate, for example, only $2 billion for UN humanitarian programs, whereas previously the US contribution was $17 billion. As a result, the effectiveness of all UN structures has decreased. Given the ongoing and new conflicts in the international political arena, this is noticeable to the naked eye.

— I remember Maria Fernanda Espinosa very well, she was in Moscow. She gave interviews and talked a lot with the press as the President of the General Assembly. Then we actively interacted with her. She left a very good impression of herself in this position," Vladimir Kuznetsov, director of the UN Information Center in Moscow, told Izvestia.

Espinosa's persona also attracts attention by the fact that she appeared quite unexpectedly: the UN member states were invited to nominate their candidacies before April 1, 2026. However, there is no reason to suspect anyone of patronage in relation to Espinosa. Firstly, this is the first candidate from a Caribbean country and another one from a State of which he is not a citizen.

In particular, the former President of Chile and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, are supported by Brazil and Mexico. And former Senegalese leader Macky Salla was nominated by Burundi. Two more candidates are the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Rebecca Greenspan from Costa Rica, and the well—known Argentinian Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi.

Hardly any of them will immediately bring the effectiveness of all UN structures to a fundamentally new level, but they are certainly capable of making positive changes.

— The new Secretary General can give the organization more publicity, so to speak, by conducting PR campaigns, meetings, negotiations, so that the UN is more visible, more involved in solving some international problems, so that some agreements are reached. Although everything is decided, of course, by the member states," former UN Deputy Secretary General Sergei Ordzhonikidze told Izvestia.

At the same time, the geographical proximity of the countries that nominated candidates, as well as the ethnic roots of most applicants for the post of UN Secretary General, are not accidental. The Latin American and Caribbean region is informally considered "next" according to the principle of geographical rotation.

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Who does Russia support

The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, whose term of office expires on December 31, is a citizen of Portugal, a member of the EU and NATO. Given the international situation, questions about his impartiality did not arise out of thin air.

Just a few days ago, Venezuela officially protested to the Secretary General because of his statements, which, according to Caracas, contradict the principles of neutrality, objectivity and impartiality, hinting at a violation of Article 100 of the UN Charter. At a press conference in Nairobi, when asked about the possibility of a repeat of the Venezuelan scenario in Cuba, he called such a comparison incorrect. According to the Secretary General, there was a military operation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela against Nicolas Maduro with "very widespread complicity within the Venezuelan political system."

And earlier, in September 2025, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out non-compliance with the principles of the same article in the context of the Ukrainian conflict. "When I asked Mr. Guterres if the declarations I mentioned, which require respect for the principle of self—determination of the people, were among the resolutions that the secretariat must implement, he evaded the answer," the diplomat recalled.

Claims against the Secretary General are flying not only from countries that oppose themselves to the "Western camp", but also from those who are in the camp of the allies. Former Israeli representative to the United Nations Dan Gillerman even called Guterres "perhaps the weakest Secretary General in the history of the United Nations" because of the sharp disagreements over the situation in the Gaza Strip. The Portuguese has repeatedly focused world attention on the high casualties among the civilian population of the exclave, the IDF strikes on humanitarian centers and hospitals. In October 2024, the Israeli authorities declared Antonio Guterres persona non grata and banned him from entering the country.: They considered his reaction to the rocket attack on the Jewish state from Iran to be insufficient and biased.

In general, Guterres regularly appears on the lists of the weakest leaders of the organization, according to leading international experts, human rights groups and diplomats. He has been rightly criticized for his inability to prevent or stop major international crises, the loss of the United Nations' geopolitical influence, and an overly cautious style of diplomacy.

So who will Russia support? The Kremlin, for example, shows sympathy to the head of the IAEA. "We know Mr. Grossi very well. You know that we are in constant contact with the IAEA," Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in April, referring to the problem areas due to the war in Iran. Russia will establish constructive cooperation with Rafael Grossi if he becomes the next secretary general, Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev said, jokingly promising reporters in that case to drink "a lot of Argentine wine" with Grossi, which he should "enjoy."

However, if we put the jokes aside, the marker of Russian support for Grossi will not be the development of the situation at the Bushehr NPP under construction in Iran, where, by the way, Russian personnel have already begun to return, but the situation around the nuclear power plant. The shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces continues, and the issue of the future of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe remains a key issue in the Ukrainian settlement, along with the withdrawal of troops from Donbass. In March 2026, Grossi accepted the claims of the Russian side regarding the biased coverage of events at the Zaporizhia NPP, said Mikhail Ulyanov, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to international organizations in Vienna.

Nevertheless, it is Grossi who is considered the favorite.

— He has extensive experience as Director General of the IAEA, and this is a huge UN special institution. And I don't think any of the permanent members of the Security Council will be against him. The Americans will definitely support him. The British and the French… I don't see that they have any difficulties with him. The Chinese are still silent," Ordzhonikidze says.

None of the candidates presented has absolute authority, at least in the eyes of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. As for Bachelet, Russia is not too happy with her "politicization and one-sidedness" in assessing the situation in Ukraine, China is not happy with her report on the situation in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a difficult topic for Beijing, and the United States clearly does not share her criticism of Israeli policy.

Macky Salla is not supported by dozens of African Union countries. Greenspan has the least complaints. In 2022, by the way, she was one of the key participants in the negotiations on the grain deal. The diplomat personally oversaw the implementation of the provisions of the memorandum between the Russian Federation and the United Nations on the normalization of exports of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers. She even visited Moscow recently, meeting with Sergey Lavrov. The parties confirmed their continued commitment to the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international affairs.

And these may not be all candidates for the post of Secretary General. At one time, Vladimir Kuznetsov draws attention to the fact that after the departure of Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1992-1996), the candidacy of Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan (1997-2006), at that time Deputy Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, appeared at the very last moment.