Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chairs the U.N. Security Council because Russia holds the presidency this month. The country is currently in the news for arresting an American journalist for doing his job and yet is treated as though this is not some kind of “April Fool’s joke” as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield described it.

Russia scheduled the meeting to highlight the principles of the U.N. charter, according to reporting. The Security Council’s presidency rotates each month among its 15 members. Besides Russia, there is also China as a permanent member. This is why people don’t take the U.N. seriously. Lavrov was chairing the meeting today while his country continued its war in Ukraine and less than a month after the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. So, Elizabeth Whelan, sister of another American being detained in Russia on espionage charges (as is Gershkovich), Paul Whelan, attended the meeting. She delivered remarks before the meeting began. Her message was, “I am here to tell Russia: free Paul Whelan.” Both Gershkovich and Whelan have been designated as wrongfully detained by the State Department.

Speaking ahead of Monday’s meeting, Elizabeth Whelan said that her brother “has not committed a crime, but a crime has been committed against him.”

She was joined by Thomas-Greenfield, as well as the Irish and Canadian ambassadors to the UN. Paul Whelan has US, Irish, Canadian and British citizenship.

“Paul was a corporate security director. He had a job he loved, a home, a life of hope and opportunity. All that has been taken away from him by Russia, a country that revels in its culture of lies, its tradition of hostage diplomacy,” Elizabeth Whelan said.

“I am here today to tell the global community that one way to engage in effective multilateralism is to confront those countries that resort to hostage diplomacy,” she added.

Thomas-Greenfield spoke, too, prior to the meeting. She called Russia the giant elephant in the room that is impossible to ignore.

“Russia, the convener of today’s meeting, invaded its neighbors in Ukraine and struck at the heart of the UN Charter. And Russia, time and time again, has violated universal human rights and fundamental freedoms both outside and inside its own borders — that includes arbitrarily detaining political activists, journalists and opposition leaders as well as the wrongful detention of American citizens,” she said.

“There’s a human cost to Russia’s violation of international norms, to its barbaric practice of using people as political pawns. That cost is borne by those detained but also by their family and friends as Paul’s sister here with me today can attest to,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Biden has been unable to secure Paul Whelan’s return to his home. Elizabeth Whelan has urged the administration to do more to free her brother. In a video on Facebook earlier this month she said, “Paul Whelan deserves better than he is getting for results. He has the White House attention to his case and now he needs the White House to get the job done.”

Elizabeth Whelan also said that her family has “repeatedly seen the US government talk about lines beyond which they will not go to bring Paul Whelan back to Michigan.” But she said that such lines had been “erased” to bring Reed and Griner home.

According to RIA, a Russian state-owned domestic news agency, there were no plans for Lavrov and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to meet on the sidelines of Monday’s meeting.

Lavrov expressed his anger that the United States has denied Russian journalists U.S. visas to accompany him on his trip to the United Nations headquarters.

“We won’t forget, we will not forgive this,” said Lavrov, who is set to chair several UN Security Council meetings in New York.

Lavrov denounced a “stupid” failure of the United States to give visas to Russian journalists.

“A country that calls itself the strongest, smartest, freest and fairest, chickened out,” Lavrov said.

He added that this “showed the worth of their solemn assurances on freedom of speech.”

Them’s the breaks, Lavrov. Russia snatched an American journalist. The least the United States should do is deny Russian reporters permission to work in America to cover Lavrov’s trip. More of this, please.