The United States Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday and Thursday respectively, as the war between the two countries enters its second month. The conflict is in its decisive phase according to Zelenskyy as its focus has moved to the Russian-backed separatist controlled eastern areas of the Donbass region, while Kyiv also claims that Russia is eyeing more Ukrainian territory to the south.
The UN has stated that “He hopes to talk about what can be done to bring peace to Ukraine urgently,” in context of Guterres’ meeting with Putin. The U.S.-led Western countries have imposed a slew of hard-hitting sanctions on Russia albeit with debatable results, as China emerged as the most powerful and vocal critic of sanctions which it calls ‘unilateral’ and ‘illegal’. Russia was also expelled from the Human Rights Council on April 7th.
Negotiations are also currently underway between the two sides even as direct hostilities and casualties continue.
The IAEA, the international nuclear watchdog body under the UN, will visit the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26th, the anniversary of history’s largest industrial disaster in 1986 in the then Soviet Union, now in Ukraine. The visit will be led by Director General Rafael Grossi to deliver equipment, and conduct radiological and other tests at the site which has been under Russian occupation since the beginning of the offensive on February 24th.
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