“Counterproductive, confrontational and politically motivated”: on the 8th of July, Russia vetoed a UN resolution condemning the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and calling it a “crime of genocide”. In the same vote, China abstained, as well as non-permanent Security Council members Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria

This was the first veto at the Security Council in 2015. It may not be the last, though: Malaysia has recently been lobbying for a resolution for the creation of an international tribunal dedicated to prosecuting those responsible for the crash of MH17 over Ukraine, almost one year ago. The idea has been gaining ground in the last few weeks and Russia is not happy about it, calling it “counterproductive” and clearly stating its intent to oppose it.

This renewal of Russia’s diplomatic “nuisance” at the Security Council has prompted some experts to predict a comeback to the times of “Mr.Nyet”, the nickname given to soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko: during his time, from 1946 to 1968, the USSR vetoed about 80 UN resolutions.

The fear is not new: in 2008, after Russia had vetoed a resolution to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, The Economist had reported on the event with the title “The return of Mr Nyet”.

And indeed, a look at the last 20 years of vetoes at the Security Council shows that Russia has been much more active since 2005. Between 1995 and 2005, Russia only used their veto right once, whereas the United States used it ten times. From 2005 to 2015 however, Russia vetoed nine resolutions against three for the United States.