UN chief’s blast at ‘absurd’ conflict
THE head of the United Nations decried Russia’s war with Ukraine as ‘an absurdity’ while visiting scenes of alleged war crimes yesterday.
On his first visit to Ukraine since Vladimir Putin’s invasion, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the conflict as ‘evil’ and backed a war crimes probe.
‘I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed. I see my granddaughters running away in panic,’ the 72-year-old UN chief said in Borodianka, a ruined town north-east of Kyiv.
‘The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil.’
Giving his support to an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into possible war crimes, he said: ‘I appeal to the Russian Federation to cooperate with the ICC.’ The UN chief was also scheduled to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the visit.
He met Putin in Moscow on Tuesday for what proved to be a failed peace mission. Russia rebuffed Mr Guterres’s offer to help evacuate Mariupol, the besieged port that has been the scene of the war’s bloodiest fighting.
Russia also attacked central Kyiv while Mr Guterres was visiting the city, killing at least one person and injuring several others.
Highlighting the irony of the timing, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior Zelensky aide, said: ‘Missile strikes in Kyiv during the official visit of Antonio Guterres. The day before he was sitting in the Kremlin.’