War absurd in 21st century, says UN chief
UN SECRETARY-general Antonio Guterres yesterday 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 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,” he said in Borodianka, a ruined town north-east of the Ukrainian capital. “The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil,” he said.
In neighbouring Bucha, where dozens of bodies in civilian clothes were discovered this month after a Russian withdrawal, Guterres backed an International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
The UN head met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Tuesday, he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, repeating calls for both countries to work together to set up “safe and effective” humanitarian corridors in war-torn Ukraine.
Nearly 5.4 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the invasion, says the UN, and more than 12million others are displaced internally. 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. Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov warned of “extremely difficult weeks”.
The defence ministry in Moscow said its forces had destroyed two arms and ammunition depots in eastern and southern Ukraine overnight with “high-precision missiles”.
It said its air force also targeted 67 Ukrainian military sites while air defence systems destroyed a Ukrainian fighter jet in the Lugansk region.
Russia has in recent days targeted Western-supplied arms, as the US and Europe heed Zelensky’s call for heavier firepower. Putin said if Western forces intervene in Ukraine and create “unacceptable threats”, they will face a “lightning-fast” military response.
The Kremlin yesterday said that Western arms deliveries “threaten” Europe’s security.
The German parliament voted in favour of providing Kyiv with heavy weapons, a major shift in policy. The White House proposed using assets seized from Russian oligarchs to compensate Ukraine for damage caused by Moscow’s invasion of the country, part of a US attempt to ratchet up economic punishment on the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, the civilian and military administrator of the Russian-controlled region of Kherson in southern Ukraine was quoted as saying that the rouble will soon be introduced in areas under Moscow’s control.
In its economic stand-off with the West, Russia has cut gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, both EU and Nato members. Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Kiril Petkov yesterday urged Europe to be “stronger” and wean itself off Russian gas as he also visited Ukraine.
Bulgaria and Poland are since receiving gas from EU neighbours.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declared: “The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end.”
Tensions have also risen in Transnistria, an unrecognised breakaway region of Moldova that borders south-western Ukraine. Authorities there have reported several explosions and incidents this week that it called “terrorist attacks”, leading Kyiv to accuse Moscow of seeking to expand the war further into Europe.