Top meeting between Blinken and Lavrov is canceled

UN Secretary-General: Russian troops are not peacekeepers

The world is on the brink of the “greatest global peace and security crisis in recent years.” UN chief António Guterres said this during a press conference on Monday, reports AP . news agency† Vladimir Putin’s announced “peace mission” in eastern Ukraine, Guterres called “the perversion of the concept of peacekeeping.”

“They are not impartial peacekeepers – they are not peacekeepers at all,” he said. Russia is acting in violation of the UN Charter, according to the top boss at the United Nations and he called the Russian actions “a death blow to the Minsk agreements”. Guterres further called for de-escalation and a ceasefire, saying the international community must unite “to save the people of Ukraine and beyond from the scourge of war.”

Top meeting between Blinken and Lavrov is canceled

The planned summit between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov has been canceled. Blinken announced that according to AFP news agency† Earlier, the United States had said that the meeting would only take place if Russia did not invade Ukraine.

“Now that we see the invasion starting and Russia has made it clear that it rejects diplomacy completely, there is no point in continuing with that summit at this point,” Blinken said after meeting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Washington. had spoken.

“We will not allow Russia to pretend to be diplomacy while at the same time accelerating its march towards conflict and war,” the top diplomat said. According to Blinken, all Western allies have been informed and agreed with the decision.

Welcome to this blog

In this blog, the editors of NRC report on the main developments in the Ukraine crisis. The West announced sanctions against Russia on Tuesday after Putin recognized the independence of the self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. A large-scale military confrontation is imminent.