Ukraine cannot be conquered “house by house,” warned this Tuesday the secretary general from HIM-HER-IT, Anthony Guterreswho called for the fighting to stop and for “peace to be given a chance.”
“This war is impossible to win“, he said in statements to journalists made at the headquarters of the world body in New York, so “sooner or later, it will have to move from the battlefield to the peace table.”
“It’s time to stop this war absurd, the bombing of hospitals, schools, residential buildings and shelters,” he said, warning that “Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house”, in the image of the city of Mariupol, which has been bombed and largely destroyed by Russian forces.
Guterres considered that the war that exploded with the invasion of Ukraine launched by Russia on February 24, “is going nowhere, fast”.
In addition to the “hell” that the Ukrainians are experiencing – 10 million people have been displaced in less than a month of conflict – “the reverberations are being felt around the world with the prices of food, energy and fertilizers due to clouds threatening to unleash a world hunger crisis,” he warned.
A group of countries has called a new special meeting of the Assembly for this Wednesday General from HIM-HER-ITin which a non-binding resolution on the “humanitarian consequences of the aggression” is expected to be put to the vote Ukraine. The text, proposed by Mexico and France, has so far 66 co-sponsors.
On March 2, in a historic decision, 141 countries voted in favor of another resolution condemning the Russian invasion against 35 abstentions (including China, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan , or Pakistan) and five votes against (North Korea, Syria, Belarus, Eritrea and Russia itself).
The current project of Mexico and France is opposed by Russia and several of its allies, who do not want the name of the country to appear in the text, alleging that this “politicizes” it.
South Africa, which abstained in the vote on March 2, has tabled an alternative draft resolution, in which Russia is not mentioned.
According to diplomats consulted by AFP, the South African text is “Very similar to a text” that Russia intends to put to the vote, also on Wednesday, at a parallel meeting of the Security Council, where it has the right to veto.
Given the lack of support, Russia had given up last week on several occasions to put it to a vote.
A European diplomat, who requested anonymity, told reporters on Monday that is necessary to “isolate Russia” and for countries like “China” to “distance” from Moscow.