Russia vetoes a UN resolution condemning the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia as a genocide

Bosnian people visit graves at memorial center in Potocari near Srebrenica, 150 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Wednesday, July 8,2015. The memorial center in Potocari, is a cemetery for the victims of the Srebrenica massacre killed in the summer of 1995 during the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.(AP Photo/Amel Emric) (The Associated Press)

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Shovels are stacked beside graves in Potocari near Srebrenica, 150 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Wednesday, July 8,2015. The memorial center in Potocari, is a cemetery for victims of the Srebrenica massacre who were killed in the summer of 1995 during the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.(AP Photo/Amel Emric) (The Associated Press)

UNITED NATIONS – Russia has vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have condemned the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war as a "crime of genocide."

The Security Council put the resolution to a vote Wednesday despite appeals from Russia and China not to vote because of divisions in the U.N.'s most powerful body. The vote was 10-1 with four abstentions.

Two international courts have called the slaughter by Bosnian Serbs of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys who had sought refuge at what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected site genocide.

But Russia, Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs denounced the resolution as divisive.