Russia's United Nations ambassador falsely accuses the United States of fomenting a coup in Ukraine

CORRECTION: The original version of this story stated that Russia's United Nations Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya repeated former President Donald Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 election was stolen. Further review revealed that the comments were taken out of context. AlterNet apologizes for the error.

The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday complained about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin's murderous invasion of Ukraine, which Vasily Nebenzya bemoaned as "the connivance of Germany, France, and Poland, with the support of the United States, where the legitimately elected president of the country was overthrown.”

That final clause was a false accusation that the United States orchestrated a coup in Ukraine in 2014.

Nebenzya attended and spoke on behalf of Putin and one of only five representatives of UN member nations to vote against a resolution condemning Putin's ill-begotten war. Syria, Belarus, Eritrea, and North Korea joined in the opposition.

The Recount tweeted on Wednesday afternoon:

FYI: We deleted a tweet that took UN Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya out of context — the way his sentence was structured and translated tripped us up. We do not take this lightly, and we sincerely regret the error. Thank you to Matthew Kupfer for pointing out our mistake.

This story has been updated from its original version.