UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is set to travel to Moscow to discuss the Ukrainian crisis with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.
According to a statement by the Secretary General’s spokesman Stephane Dujjaric, the meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 26. This is the first in-person meeting between Putin and Guterres since the former launched an attack on Ukraine in late February.
The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the meetings would take place but did not give any details on the agenda.
Guterres’ spokesman announced that, the UN Secretary General had written to the Russian and Ukrainian presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky asking for meetings in Moscow and Kiev respectively.
The Secretary General’s visit to Moscow comes as peace talks between Moscow and Kiev have effectively stalled. Both countries have constantly accused the other of hindering civilian evacuations, committing war crimes and violating international law.
Russia attacked its neighbor quoting Ukraine’s failure to implement Minsk agreements’ terms, signed in 2014 and Moscow’s recognition of the separatists’ republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
