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)

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)

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.