UN Chief and Russian President agree on key Ukraine evacuation
RUSSIA,UKRAINE: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin met one-on-one Tuesday for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United Nations said they agreed on arranging evacuations from a besieged steel plant in the battered city of Mariupol.
UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Russian leader and UN Chief discussed “proposals for humanitarian assistance and evacuation of civilians from conflict zones, namely in relation to the situation in Mariupol.”
They also agreed in principle, he said, that the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be involved in the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel complex where Ukrainian defenders in the southeastern city are making a dogged stand.
Discussions will be held with the UN humanitarian office and the Russian Defense Ministry on the evacuation, Dujarric said.
During the meeting, which the UN said lasted nearly two hours, Putin and Guterres sat at opposite ends of a long white table in a room with gold curtains bordered in red. No one else was at the table.
Meanwhile,concerns that the Ukraine war could escalate into a wider conflict grew on Tuesday as Kyiv accused Moscow of trying to create unrest in a Russian-backed separatist region of Moldova.c
The United Nations and United States warned of rising tensions in the Transnistria region of Moldova, as UN chief Antonio Guterres met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and pleaded for peace.
Russian forces have been in Transnistria for decades after the predominantly Russian-speaking region seceded from the former Soviet republic.
The claim triggered alarm that Moldova could be Russia’s next target as Moscow used the same “false flag” argument after launching its bloody invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Meanwhile, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said that Western and Ukrainian Government policy was leading towards the break-up of Ukraine.
The comments from Nikolai Patrushev amounted to a warning that Russia’s war in Ukraine could lead to a carve-up of the country, for which Moscow would seek to pin the blame on its opponents.
In an interview with government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Patrushev – a key ally of President Vladimir Putin – said the United States had for years been trying to instil hatred for everything Russian in Ukrainians.
Therefore the result of Western and Kyiv policy could only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states, he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Officials in Poland and Bulgaria said Tuesday that Russia is suspending their countries’ natural gas deliveries after they refused to pay for their supplies in Russian rubles.
The Governments of the two European Union and NATO members said Russian energy giant Gazprom informed them it was halting the gas supplies starting Wednesday.
– THE BANGKOK POST, THE MALAY MAIL, JAPAN TODAY