United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has requested to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss “urgent steps” to end the fighting in Ukraine.
The request was made in a letter handed to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. A separate request was made to the Ukraine mission at the U.N. for the secretary-general to visit Kyiv.
“He noted that both Ukraine and the Russian Federation are founding members of the United Nations and have always been strong supporters of this Organization.”
Guterres push for face-to-face diplomacy with Putin comes as the Russian leader has directed an intensive, renewed assault on Ukraine’s eastern territory and Ukrainian forces surrounded in the southern-port city of Mariupol warn they are likely to lose the city within a matter of hours.
U.S. and European officials have described Putin as extremely isolated and cut off from accurate information over his military losses in Ukraine.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer was the last Western leader to meet face-to-face with Putin in Moscow on April 11. He told news outlets that the Russian president “believes he is winning the war.”
Russia has been condemned by other UN member-states, with a majority of nations voting in the General Assembly to condemn Moscow as the instigator of the war, and to suspend Russia’s participation in the Human Rights Council over allegations of grave human rights violations.
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