UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Carl Fredrik Reutersward’s iconic sculpture The Knotted Gun (Photo: ANSA)
11:22, April 23•ROMA•ANSA Editors
(ANSA) — ROME, APRIL 23 — The UN announced the official visit of the organization’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres to Kyiv next Thursday, April 28, and will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky two days after his visit to Moscow Wladimir Putin.
“On Tuesday, April 26, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will arrive in Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He will also be received by President Vladimir Putin,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
The UN later confirmed the visit, which will be the first meeting between Guterres and Putin since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, which has killed thousands and displaced and exiled more than 12 million.
After Moscow, the Secretary-General will visit Ukraine, where “he will meet with Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba and will be received by Volodymyr Zelenskyy on April 28,” the UN said in a statement.
Guterres also expects to meet with teams from UN agencies on the ground “to discuss increased humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians,” a United Nations source in New York added.
On April 19, Guterres sent letters to Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy to be received in Moscow and Kyiv.
He had previously asked the two sides for a four-day “humanitarian break” during the Orthodox Easter holiday.
According to the UN, Guterres is trying to stimulate dialogue to end the conflict.
The United Nations has been clearly marginalized in this crisis since Moscow deployed troops to Ukraine last February 24. He only had telephone contact with Zelenski on February 26.
He has not spoken or kept in touch with Putin since Guterres claimed that Russia had violated the United Nations charter by sending troops to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in his message to the nation last night, Zelenskyy said Western partners had finally started supplying Kyiv with the weapons it really needs.
“We were finally heard” and Ukraine is getting “exactly what we asked for,” the Ukrainian president said, stressing that comments from a Russian commander about the need to ally with Moldova would show Moscow’s intent to reach out to other peoples to penetrate
“We are supplying (to Ukraine) Multiple Launch Rocket Systems as well as our allies. We also have a number of allies working to provide what they need to get their planes flying again,” Victoria said. Nuland, Assistant Secretary for Political Affairs of the United States.
“As a result, more Ukrainian planes are now in service than there were a week ago. There is also a huge amount of spare parts for planes that make a difference,” he added, referring to the West’s contributions to Kyiv.
In his video message, Zelenskyy also referred to Good Friday before Orthodox Easter, which falls on this Sunday.
“Good Friday is coming to an end, one of the saddest days of the year for Christians. The day when death seems to have triumphed. But we hope for a resurrection. We believe in the victory of life over death. Death loses,” he said.
However, mass graves with hundreds of buried bodies continue to come to light as the days go by, particularly in the Mariupol area. The last, with more than 1,000 bodies, was found in the town of Vynohradne.
“This is the biggest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust,” said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko. (ANSA).
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