UN CHIEF VISITS KYIV AND CALLS WAR AN ‘ABSURDITY’
▶ Guterres pressed on prosecutions of Russian figures after seeing towns where civilian dead were discovered
The head of the UN has called Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine “an absurdity” as he visited the sites of alleged massacres carried out by Russian troops.
Antonio Guterres urged Russia to co-operate with investigations into purported atrocities as he toured the ruins of Borodyanka, Bucha and Irpin, three towns near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Mr Guterres was accompanied by local military and civilian leaders who showed him residential buildings that were destroyed when Russia attacked and temporarily occupied the towns.
He was told by a Ukrainian military official that 112 civilians had been found dead in Borodyanka and that half of its buildings had been hit by Russian fire.
Speaking about what he called the “horrendous sight” left behind by Russian troops, the UN secretary general said “civilians always pay the highest price” in a war they did not initiate.
“I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic,” Mr Guterres said.
He called the war “an absurdity in the 21st century”. Discussing potential prosecutions of Russian officials, he said: “When we talk about war crimes, we cannot forget that the worst of crimes is war itself.”
Bucha has become synonymous with the reported atrocities committed by Russian forces. The bodies of hundreds of civilians were discovered following the withdrawal of Moscow’s troops last month.
Ukrainian prosecutors said on Thursday they were investigating 10 Russian soldiers for war crimes in Bucha. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is also working with Ukraine and its allies to investigate the claims.
Moscow pulled out of the ICC treaty in 2016.
Since withdrawing from Kyiv, Russia has refocused its offensive on the south and east of Ukraine, which said it had repelled six attacks by Moscow’s forces in the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The Ukrainian military said the Kremlin wanted to establish full control of those regions but claimed Russian forces had lost another 400 troops in the space of 24 hours, taking the purported total number of Russian fatalities to 22,800.
Mr Guterres, who held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, separately told CNN that despite his diplomatic efforts, “the war will not end with meetings” but when Russia agrees to a ceasefire and paves the way for a political solution to the conflict.
As Mr Zelenskyy continued his appeals for military support from the West, MPs in Germany voted to approve the export of heavy weapons such as anti-aircraft tanks, a move welcomed by Ukraine after weeks of complaints about the pace of military support from Berlin.
Meanwhile, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was ready to maintain support for Ukraine for years if the conflict dragged on for that long.
He said longer-term support for Ukraine would include training its troops to use advanced western equipment instead of relying on Soviet-era gear forwarded by countries in the former Warsaw Pact. “There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
The trip by the UN chief is the his first visit to Ukraine since the invasion in February, making him the latest senior figure to go to Kyiv after the leaders of Britain, the EU and other powers. It comes two days after Mr Guterres held talks in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Although Mr Guterres was criticised by some for offering
Moscow a propaganda opportunity, the UN said the meeting had produced an agreement in principle to get civilians out of a surrounded steel plant in the southern port city of Mariupol.
Ukraine says civilians are in the Azovstal steelworks alongside soldiers defending the city, which both sides say is mostly in Russian hands.
Humanitarian workers from the UN and the Red Cross are trying to arrange an evacuation but say a ceasefire is needed to enable this. Ukraine and Russia
blamed each other for earlier failed attempts at opening humanitarian corridors.
Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Mr Guterres, said some military activity was still going on at Azovstal, despite Mr Putin’s statement last week that the plant should be sealed off rather than stormed.
“We want to make sure that is halted, and in such a way that we can actually bring people to safety. We don’t have those conditions on the ground as of this moment,” he said.
War is an absurdity in the 21st century … when we talk about war crimes, we cannot forget the worst of crimes is war itself ANTONIO GUTERRES
UN Secretary General