VISITING U.N. CHIEF CONDEMNS ‘ABSURDITY IN THE 21st CENTURY’

Secretary general Antonio Guterres implores Kremlin to accept International Criminal Court probe into possible war crimes in the conflict

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited sites of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, decrying war as “an absurdity in the 21st century” and urging Russia to cooperate with an international investigation into atrocities.

Making his first visit yesterday to Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion on February 24, Guterres toured several towns and villages outside Kyiv where Russian forces are accused of killing civilians.

“I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic,” the UN chief said in Borodianka, a ruined town northeast of the Ukrainian capital.

“The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil,” he added.

In neighbouring Bucha, where dozens of bodies in civilian clothes, some with their hands tied behind their backs, were discovered this month after a Russian withdrawal, Guterres backed an International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine.

“I appeal to the Russian Federation to accept, to cooperate with the ICC,” he implored the Kremlin.

The UN head was to later meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Tuesday, he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, repeating calls for Moscow and Kyiv to work together to set up “safe and effective” humanitarian corridors in wartorn Ukraine.

A UN representative to Ukraine said yesterday she was preparing for a “hopeful” evacuation from the encircled port city of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv said civilians and injured fighters were trapped.

“The UN is fully mobilised to help save Ukrainian lives and to assist those in need,” the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Osnat Lubrani wrote on Twitter.

With the war, now into a third month and claiming thousands of lives, Kyiv has admitted Russian forces are making gains in the east, capturing a string of villages in the Donbas region.

The first phase of Russia’s invasion failed to reach Kyiv or overthrow Zelensky’s government after encountering stiff Ukrainian resistance reinforced with Western weapons. The campaign has since refocused on seizing the east and south of the country while increasingly using longrange missiles against west and central Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov conceded the country faced “extremely difficult weeks” as Moscow tried “to inflict as much pain as possible”.

Russia’s defence ministry said yesterday its forces had destroyed two arms and ammunition depots in eastern and southern Ukraine overnight with “high-precision missiles”.

Its air force targeted 67 Ukrainian military sites while air defence systems destroyed a Ukrainian fighter jet in the Luhansk region, the ministry added. Russia has also in recent days targeted Western-supplied arms, as the United States and Europe increasingly heed Zelensky’s call for heavier firepower.

In a defiant speech on Wednesday, Putin said if Western forces intervened in Ukraine and created “unacceptable threats”, they would face a “lightning-fast” military response.

“We have all the tools for this, that no one else can boast of having,” he told lawmakers, implicitly referring to Moscow’s ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal.

The Kremlin reiterated the warnings yesterday, calling Western arms deliveries dangerous for European security.

“The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine – these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Western allies remain wary of being drawn into war with Russia but have stepped up military support as Ukraine has maintained its fierce resistance.