Guterres meets Putin in Russia to discuss Ukraine

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit held in the Russian city of Kazan this week. The Kremlin announced the meeting at around 9:30 pm (Spanish time) and published a video in which the two greeted each other with a handshake.

This is the first time Guterres and Putin have seen each other in more than two years. The last time was in April 2022, two months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. The meeting has sparked outrage in Kiev, which has expressed discomfort with the UN chief’s attendance at the Kazan summit and his face-off with the Russian president, whose arrest has been requested by the International Criminal Court accused of war crimes. . ,

As Guterres’ spokesman reported earlier in the week, Guterres plans to reiterate to Putin at their meeting “his well-known position on the war in Ukraine and the conditions for a just peace based on the founding charter of the United Nations.” The resolution.” The founding international treaty of the United Nations establishes respect for the territorial integrity and political independence of states and during these two and a half years, Guterres has repeatedly condemned the Russian aggression as a violation of it.

At the same time, the UN Secretary-General, according to his spokesperson, “will continue efforts to restore safe navigation in the Black Sea, which is extremely important for global food and energy security, especially for the world’s most vulnerable countries,” followed by Moscow. Ukraine last year withdrew from an agreement that allowed millions of metric tons of grain to be shipped through Ukrainian ports.

Earlier on Thursday, speaking at a meeting of the BRICS grouping with countries of the Global South, Guterres reiterated his call for peace in Ukraine: “A just peace in line with the UN Charter, international law and General Assembly resolutions. ,

In addition, the UN chief has called for a solution in Sudan and peace in the Gaza Strip, where he has advocated an “immediate ceasefire”; Lebanon and Ukraine. “We want peace everywhere. “We need peace in Gaza with an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” he said during the meeting in the Russian city of Kazan. He also considered “effective” delivery of humanitarian aid and “irreversible” progress necessary to “end the Israeli occupation” and implement a two-state solution. “We need peace in Lebanon with an immediate cessation of hostilities, while moving toward the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701,” he said.

The UN Secretary-General also recalled the four challenges identified in the future summit in the areas of finance, climate, technology and peace. “Tackling global challenges requires a community of nations working as a global family,” he said at the beginning of his speech.

According to the EFE agency, the Russian president responded to Guterres that scandals and even “fights” happen in good families, pointing to the existing hostility between Russia and the West. “The respected General Secretary said that we all should live as one big family. We live like this. Unfortunately, separation, scandals and division of property often happen in families,” Putin said at the end of Guterres’ speech at the BRICS group meeting.

“Sometimes things end in a fight,” Putin said with a half-smile. In this sense, he said BRICS has set itself the goal of creating “a conducive environment in the common home”. “We are and will remain dedicated to these, including coordination with the United Nations,” he said.

Ukraine angry with Guterres’ visit

Guterres’ visit to Russia has angered Kiev. The Ukrainian government has criticized the UN Secretary General for agreeing to meet with Putin after he refused to attend a peace conference held in Switzerland – which was hosted by the invaded country – last June. – And many international leaders participated in it. “Instead, accept war criminal Putin’s invitation to Kazan,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on social media.

According to Farhan Haq, the secretary-general’s deputy spokesman, the meeting with the Kremlin chief has been “one of the main reasons for his presence” in Kazan. Haq argued that Guterres has attended the summit “as he has previously done in South Africa (at the group’s previous summits), as has attending meetings of organizations with a large number of significant member states, such as the G7 or It has always been his custom to take G20.” The spokesperson highlighted that the BRICS group of countries “represent almost half of humanity” and, therefore, the summit was “very important for the United Nations’ work with Member States.”

He added, “With regard to Ukraine and visits to this country, the Secretary-General looks forward to visiting Ukraine at a time convenient for both sides, as agreed when he met with President (Volodymyr) Zelensky earlier in September ”

The BRICS grouping, initially composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has expanded to nine members with the integration of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates and seeks to become a powerful rival to the West. .

The final declaration of the Kazan summit, published this Wednesday, emphasizes that “all States should act consistently with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations in their entirety and interconnectedness” and commends the “relevant resolutions” This has been taken care of. Mediation and Good Office, which aims at the peaceful resolution of conflict through negotiation and diplomacy.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry believes that the document does not include “the Russian neo-imperialist vision of transforming the world order and global security architecture through its aggression against Ukraine”. “Moscow’s attempts to impose the idea of ​​an alleged alternative position of the so-called Global South on Russian aggression against Ukraine have again failed,” the official note from Kiev continues, adding that “the declaration shows that A union in the form of BRICS in which they do not have a single position on war.

“We are convinced that this is due to the support of the vast majority of these countries for the purposes and principles of the United Nations, as also mentioned in the declaration,” the Kyiv statement said, reminding that these principles One of the respects Russia violates is the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries it violates in Ukraine. As Ukrainian diplomacy notes, this support for the UN Charter is “incompatible with supporting aggression or changing borders by force” and “therefore with supporting a war of aggression against Russia and Ukraine.”

In one of its most notable posts, the countries participating in the BRICS summit have condemned the sanctions imposed without UN approval on countries like Russia or Iran.

For now, Kiev and Ukraine appear to remain distant and there is no sign that they are willing to engage in comprehensive peace talks to end the conflict. Zelensky is trying to step on the accelerator to garner support for what he has dubbed a “victory plan,” with which he would exert his influence militarily and diplomatically on his allies in the event of final negotiations with Moscow. Want to exert pressure to “consolidate” the position. , but even Now this proposal has not been enthusiastically accepted by the Western partners.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Military Defense Intelligence Service said North Korean military units have left Russian training camps and entered the combat zone between Russian and Ukrainian armies for the first time. In particular, Ukrainian spies have searched troops in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces began an incursion last August.

In response to allegations of North Korean troop deployment, Putin has assured that his country and North Korea will decide how and when to implement the article of mutual military assistance in case of aggression included in the association treaty signed by both countries. . When a journalist asked him about the existence of satellite images that clearly show North Korean military activities, Putin replied: “The pictures are serious. If there are, it means there is something.”

The Pentagon said this Wednesday for the first time that it was aware of the presence of North Korean troops on Russian territory, while the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) estimated the number of troops already sent by Pyongyang to the Russian Federation at approximately Is 3,000. ,

With information from EFE.