Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed this Friday (22) that Russian President Vladimir Putin will receive in Moscow, next Tuesday (26), the Secretary General of the United Nations ( UN), Antonio Guterres. The information is from the Russian agency TASS.
The Russian agency reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will also be present at the meeting.
“On Tuesday, April 26th, UN Secretary General António Guterres will arrive in Moscow to speak with Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. He will also be received by President Vladimir Putin,” added Dmitry Peskov.
Russia responded in the affirmative to the request made by Guterres, who sent a letter to Vladimir Putin on 19 April. This will be the first time that the UN Secretary General has spoken with Vladimir Putin since February 24, the day the war in Ukraine began.
United Nations spokeswoman Eri Kaneko said Guterres is coming to Moscow with a peace agenda, wanting to know what can be done to end the war.
“The Secretary-General’s message will be to discuss what steps can be taken to silence the guns and help people who want to get out safely,” he added.
Cited by Reuters, Eri Kaneko also added that the UN is in talks with the Ukrainian government for a potential visit by António Guterres to Kiev.
“The Secretary-General said that at this time of great danger and consequences, he would like to discuss urgent measures to bring peace to Ukraine and the future of multilateralism based on the United Nations Charter and international law,” he said on Wednesday. Secretary-General’s spokesman Stéphane Dujarric, noting that both Ukraine and Russia are founding members of the United Nations and “have always been strong supporters of this Organization.”
Later, the UN Secretary General’s office reported that the visit to Kiev would take place on 28 April.
Criticism of Guterres
Guterres’ trip to Russia comes at a time when the UN secretary-general is coming under fire for what critics see as a passivity in taking concrete steps to wage the war in Ukraine.
This week, more than 200 former UN leaders wrote a letter to Antonio Guterres, urging him to be more proactive about this conflict.
The signatories warned that unless Guterres steps up more personally to take the lead in trying to broker peace in Ukraine, the United Nations risks not only irrelevance, but its continued existence.
Former officials, including many former UN undersecretaries, urged the current secretary-general to prepare to take personal risks to ensure peace, saying the United Nations faces an existential threat due to the invasion of Ukraine by one of the five members. permanent members of the Security Council.
However, that view was challenged by Stéphane Dujarric, who said on Wednesday that the Secretary-General has made calls for “silencing the guns, has been directly involved in attempts to obtain humanitarian pauses (…), and has made a direct emotional appeal. to the president of Russia”, noting that these actions have been part of Guterres’ involvement since the conflict began.
Just this week, the UN Secretary-General proposed to Russia and Ukraine that they declare a four-day “Easter Truce” (referring to Orthodox Easter).
Ukraine supported the initiative to declare a “humanitarian pause” to help evacuate civilians from areas most affected by the fighting.
But pro-Russian militias in the Donbass region doubt the measure’s effectiveness and have accused Kiev of breaking previous truces during the region’s eight years of conflict.
Source: CNN Brasil
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