UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged an end to the war in Ukraine, calling it “absurd”, morally unacceptable, politically untenable and militarily illogical.
Since the start of the Russian invasion, he said, Ukrainians have been suffering from a “living hell”, where civilians are terrified by systematic bombing, and 10 million people have been forced from their homes.
Guterres warned – at a news conference in New York – that the war also threatens to trigger a “global hunger crisis”, by causing food, energy and fertilizer prices to rise.
There are growing concerns in Ukraine over the fate of residents of a number of cities worst affected by the war, including Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast, Chernihiv in the north, and Mariupol in the south.
Russia is bombarding the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, making it a “wasteland,” its local council said Tuesday.
“Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house. This war cannot be won. Sooner or later, it will have to move from the battlefield to the peace table,” Guterres said.
“It is time to end this absurd war,” he added, stressing that “there is enough on the table to stop the hostilities…They negotiated now and seriously.”
US National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan warned that the coming days will be “difficult” in Ukraine.
His comments came ahead of a visit by US President Joe Biden to Brussels on Wednesday.
It is expected that the United States and its allies will announce a new package of sanctions targeting Russia, according to what Sullivan announced.
The US official emphasized that the United States had not found evidence that China was providing weapons to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
Putin described the war, the biggest attack on a European country since World War Two, as a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from the “Nazis”.
Western countries say that this is a false excuse to launch an unjustified war of aggression.
Russian forces have failed to capture any major city in Ukraine more than four weeks following they invaded the country.
