Russia was expelled from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Executive Board, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

With this decision the era of Russian influence ended, the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.

“For the first time in history, Russia has been excluded from the UNESCO Executive Board.  The era of Russian influence is over, and rightly so: there is no place for Russian terrorists at the helm of significant international organizations. Russia’s international role will only continue to weaken,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine has called on UNESCO to exclude Russia from the Executive Board several times since the beginning of the Moscow attack in 2022 due to Russia’s deliberate destruction of cultural heritage sites in Ukraine.

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