Russian Senate Openly Slams Requests For 'Mock Trial' Of WHO, China Over COVID-19 Outbreak

China continues to face international hostility from 122 countries that have called for an “impartial, independent and comprehensive” inquiry into handling the outbreak. The resolution makes no categoric mention of Wuhan or China, though.

Despite Russia falling among the nations that support investigations, Russian Senate Valentina Matviyenko openly refuted the need for it and declared her support to China and WHO on Monday to a news agency -- for their efforts to contain its spread and taking due measures to warn the global community of the severity of the pandemic.

Implicitly hinting at how such actions would be met with stiff resistance, Matviyenko also questioned the need to perform any investigation "of any kind" that would shake up the foundation of myriad inventions that have served mankind for decades.

“China was the first to take the hit" from the pandemic,” said Matviyenko. “Its competent and professional restrictive measures, a strict isolation regime and quarantine allowed it to manage, gain experience with coronavirus and gave other countries a respite of a month and a half,” she added.

The senate’s views come as a stark contrast from U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance that fixated on holding China responsible for an attempted cover-up while also accusing WHO of being a “puppet” of the Asian superpower.

Not one to be bogged down by Matviyenko's comments, Trump penned a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus citing his concerns and how non-co-operation from the United Nations body’s end would result in the organization losing U.S. funding.

China has retorted back to the accusations made by Trump in keeping with the COVID-19 outbreak, often terming the move as a strategy to deflect the focus from the astute failure of the Trump administration in handling the crisis in the U.S.

However, on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to support a "comprehensive review" of the pandemic, on the condition of waiting it out until the outbreak was brought under control. Jinping had made this known to the World Health Assembly on Monday.

Russia finds itself among the list of counties that have been hardest hit by the pandemic. As per the statistics provided by the Johns Hopkins University, 300,000 cases and 2,837 deaths have been logged in at present. Experts have alleged there to be some sort of discrepancy in the numbers mentioned. Despite the spike in numbers, President Vladimir Putin has announced the lift of the nation-wide lockdown in Russia.