UN Secretary-General António Guterres sets his Mediation trip in the Ukraine conflict and wants to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyj in Kyiv on Thursday afternoon. Before that he visited the Kiev suburbs of Borodyanka and Bucha. The latter has become a symbol of those committed since the Russian invasion atrocities become. Guterres urged Russia to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in investigating possible war crimes.
“I fully support the ICC and appeal to the Russian Federation to accept cooperation with the ICC,” he said. Guterres had previously paid a visit to the city of Borodyanka. “Of the Krieg is an absurdity in the 21st century,” he said in the Kyiv suburb, where, like in Bucha and Irpin, Russian troops are said to have committed atrocities against civilians, according to Ukrainian sources. “I imagine my family in one of these houses that are now being destroyed are,” Guterres said in Borodyanka. “I see my granddaughters running around in a panic. There is “no way that war is acceptable in the 21st century.”
Meeting with Zelenskyy
A meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is planned for the afternoon. According to the UN, Guterres also wants to meet with representatives of UN organizations. As in the previous visit to Moscow, one of the main topics is likely to be the situation in the southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, where Ukrainian troops and civilians are surrounded by the Russian army.
On Tuesday with Putin
On Tuesday, the UN Secretary General met with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. He had called for a swift ceasefire in Ukraine and appealed to the governments in Moscow and Kyiv to work with the UN to open safe escape corridors for civilians. Recently, the pressure on the UN Secretary-General to take a more active role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine had increased. Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24.