In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with Iran’s conservative Parliament Speaker on the sidelines of a BRICS (the bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) parliamentary forum in Saint Petersburg on July 11, 2024. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
KAZAN — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will meet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday to discuss the Ukraine conflict, in the UN chief’s first trip to Russia in more than two years, the Kremlin said.
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the central Russian city of Kazan, a forum Moscow hopes to use to show the West that attempts to isolate Russia over the Ukraine offensive have failed.
“It is expected that along with the activities of the UN, they will touch upon topical issues on the international agenda, including the Middle East crisis and the situation around Ukraine,” the Kremlin said.
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The UN did not confirm the planned meeting, and Ukraine strongly criticized Guterres decision to meet Putin.
Asked at a briefing in New York whether Guterres was intending to travel to Kazan later this week, his deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters: “Announcements on his future travels will be later on down the line.”
Guterres has repeatedly criticized Moscow’s military offensive on Ukraine and said it sets a “dangerous precedent” for the world, but Ukraine’s foreign ministry said meeting Putin now “does not advance the cause of peace” and “damages the UN’s reputation”.
“The UN Secretary General declined Ukraine’s invitation to the first Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. He did, however, accept the invitation to Kazan from war criminal Putin,” the ministry said in a posting on X.
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Guterres has called for a “just peace” that respects international law and Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.”
During his last visit in April 2022, two months after Russia launched its offensive, Guterres had discussed with Putin proposals for humanitarian assistance and the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones, according to a UN readout of the meeting.
There are no signs that either Kyiv or Moscow is yet open to wider talks on a settlement to end the two-and-a-half-year conflict.
Putin has demanded Ukraine effectively capitulate by abandoning more territory in its south and east as a precondition to a ceasefire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to countenance ceding land to secure a peace deal and ruled out direct talks with Putin.
Speaking at the United Nations last month, Zelensky told the Security Council — of which Russia is a permanent member — that Moscow “can only be forced into peace.”