Moscow, Europe Brief News – United Nations chief Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow and Kyiv next week in an effort to end the two-month-long war in Ukraine.
Antonio Guterres will travel first to Moscow and then to Kyiv to discuss ‘steps that can be taken right now’ to stop fighting.
Guterres will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, where he will also hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Guterres will then travel to Kyiv on Thursday, where he will meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
In both visits, Guterres aims to discuss “steps that can be taken right now” to stop the fighting and help people get to safety, UN Spokeswoman Eri Kaneko said at a briefing in New York.
“He hopes to talk about what can be done to bring peace to Ukraine urgently,” she said.
Guterres has called the Russian invasion “the saddest moment” in his five years in the UN’s top job. His appeal earlier this week for a four-day “humanitarian pause” ahead of Orthodox Easter fell on deaf ears.
Guterres had asked to meet the leaders of both nations in separate letters handed to their countries’ permanent missions to the United Nations in an attempt by the UN to regain the diplomatic initiative.
More than five million people have fled the east European country, and thousands have been killed since Russia invaded on February 24. Also, there are growing concerns for some 100,000 civilians still living in the besieged city of Mariupol.
