Also because they prepared very well and came "armed to the teeth", where the WHC director (he's new) seems uncomfortable and the Saudi Chair could be more firm as well.

I was gonna say this as well. The Russian representative was asking the right questions, was confident and could lay out her arguments quite well (e.g., her disagreement with the legal counsel regarding Russia's chairmanship).

Thanks for that Solivagant, very clear, I guess I had my mental map the other way around, assuming the Saudi backed entity still controlled Sana'a

I've looked for examples in our database, and found three similar occurrences:
- WHC 2021: Bahrain was both Rapporteur (the other in-personal-capacity role) and Vice-Chair
- WHC 2014: Colombia had the same double role Rapporteur / Vice-Chair
- WHC 2012: Mexico had the same double role Rapporteur / Vice-Chair

Have checked back on the 2021 WHC decisions and it seems absolutely clear that Russia was NOT represented as a "state" on the Bureau -
Kuznetsov was Chair as an individual as was the then Rapporteur from Bahrain (We heard how India was "asked" to find a Rapporteur to replace that individual and how it went off to find someone within its diplomatic ranks - but gained nothing as a "state" by so doing) . The Elected states were - Spain, St Kitts, South Africa, Thailand and Saudi (Totalling a Bureau of 7 with the 2 individuals) Saudi, because of its English alphabetic position, got to nominate someone to chair the WHC - but kept its role as a VC too and will fill its state based "VC chair" using an unnamed career diplomat at any Bureau meeting just like the other VCs. Russia as a State had no special role ......and continues not to have one.
It seems pretty clear?
The issue of Group 2 not having a representative on the Bureau should have been foreseen and been prepared for, as supporters of Russia like South Africa were likely to try to leverage the matter. But, maybe it was better to let such matters be thrashed out during this meeting rather than trying to determine the answer before hand and be accused of skewing the answer as it was in the case of the "Draft Agenda"? It could be that, after all its huffing and puffing and wasting of 3 hours, Russia actually gets nothing?? We will see!!

I wonder who is actually determining the strategy on such matters and are they trying to keep Russia from gaining any "wins" from the matter .... or are they genuinely just not fully up with the game ???

Oman is fed up with it. But does not understand what he is agreeing to - letting the unelected Russia take the place of Saudi

For info - Santiago Villalpando the Legal advisor ....Argentine
https://legal.un.org/avl/faculty/Villalpando.html

Love it "I wasn't working for UNESCO at the time..... I was working with Nelson Mandela"!!!!

He wanted to get that into a sentence!

"Diplomacy is constructive ambiguity"
Russia says it IS in the Bureau.... others say it is NOT..... so, as a solution when mentioning the Bureau, don't actually mention the States Parties in the Bureau.......
So what happens when a Russian turns up for a Bureau meeting!!!

Saudi does not say a word. Weird. They will get kicked out if Russia gets accepted

The "anti Russian 5" (Bel,Gr,It,Jap,Bulg) are also very quiet....are they just waiting to see the way things go..... no one seems to want a vote.....the Abstainer majority might well support Russian membership of the Bureau?

The chair will not get anything done when she keeps on asking open questions to the audience.

Have you found out which countries constitute Group 2?

Zambia proposes just to add a 8th member.