MANHATTAN: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, UN Associate Spokesperson Eri Kaneko said Friday.
“The Secretary-General will visit Moscow, Russian Federation, where, on 26 April, he will have a working meeting and lunch with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and will be received by President Vladimir Putin,” she said in a brief announcement at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
The UN chief on Wednesday separately asked Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to receive him to discuss steps to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
Replying to a question, Kaneko said the UN was in touch with the Ukrainian government for a potential Guterres’ trip to Ukraine.
She gave no further details.
Letters containing Guterres’ request to meet Putin and Zelenskiy were handed over to the countries’ UN Missions in New York on Tuesday.
“The Secretary-General said, at this time of great peril and consequence, he would like to discuss urgent steps to bring peace in Ukraine and the future of multilateralism based on the Charter of the United Nations and international law,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.
“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.”
The announcement came a day after the UN chief called for a humanitarian pause in Ukraine ahead of Orthodox Christian Easter this weekend, but it has not materialized.
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