Britain on Friday rejected Russia's call for a secret ballot in the U.N. General Assembly next week on whether to condemn Moscow's move to annex four partially occupied regions in Ukraine and requested that the 193-member body vote publicly.

In a letter to U.N. states earlier this week, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia lobbied for a secret ballot, arguing that Western lobbying meant that "it may be very difficult if positions are expressed publicly," Reuters said on Saturday.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward on Friday said the rules of the General Assembly were clear that any representative may request a recorded vote.

"To conduct a secret ballot on a General Assembly decision would go against decades of precedent and undermine the practices of the world's most representative deliberative body," Woodward wrote in a letter to the General Assembly president.

Nebenzia said in a letter on Friday of Britain's move that "this is not about transparency," "but about the use of a recorded vote as a tool of subjugation and discipline." In his own letter to the president of the General Assembly, Nebenzia formally requested a secret ballot and said that if anyone opposed it, then they could call a vote on the move.

According to diplomats, the General Assembly should vote for the draft resolution on Tuesday or Wednesday.