UN Secretary-General and Russian President Vladimir Putin have reached an agreement on a critical Ukraine evacuation.
For the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin met one-on-one on Tuesday, and the UN claimed they agreed to arrange evacuations from a besieged steel mill in the shattered city of Mariupol.
According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, Putin and Guterres talked about “proposals for humanitarian assistance and civilian evacuation from combat zones, particularly in connection to the situation in Mariupol.”
They also agreed in principle, he said, that the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be involved in the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian defenders in the city’s southeast are standing firm.
The evacuation will be discussed with the UN humanitarian office and the Russian Defense Ministry, according to Dujarric.
Putin and Guterres sat at opposite sides of a large white table in a chamber with gold draperies rimmed in red for the nearly two-hour meeting, according to the United Nations. There was no one else at the table.
Guterres slammed Russia’s military operation in Ukraine as a flagrant violation of its neighbor’s territorial integrity, pleading with Russia to allow those trapped at the steel factory to be evacuated.
Putin retaliated by stating that Russian military had offered residents stranded at the facility humanitarian corridors. However, he claimed that Ukrainian defenders were using civilians as shields and refusing to let them leave.
Russian bombardment have nearly entirely devastated the sprawling Azovstal plant, but it remains the final bastion of organised Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol. 2,000 military and 1,000 civilians are thought to be holed up beneath the damaged structures in defensive positions.
Ukrainian International Minister Dmytro Kuleba acknowledged the inability of other foreign officials who visited Moscow to achieve results in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, before of Guterres’ visit, and encouraged the UN chief to press Russia for the evacuation of Mariupol. “This is really something that the U.N. is capable to do,” Kuleba said.
Guterres arrived in Rzeszow, Poland, late Tuesday after flying from Moscow. He was greeted by Polish President Andrzej Duda. He’ll be in Kyiv on Thursday for meetings with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Kuleba, with his meeting with Putin expected to be the most important.
Many observers have modest hopes for Guterres’ diplomatic intervention in the Ukraine conflict. But, ahead of the Moscow meetings, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq was unusually upbeat, telling reporters that Guterres “thinks there is a chance now” and that he “will make the most” of his time on the ground talking to leaders and seeing what can be accomplished.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Guterres has accused Russia of violating the United Nations Charter, which advocates for peaceful conflict resolution.
He’s also called for a halt to hostilities on numerous occasions, most recently unsuccessfully last Tuesday in calling for a four-day “humanitarian pause” leading up to the Orthodox Easter holiday on Sunday.
Amin Awad, the United Nations’ Ukraine crisis coordinator, followed up on Sunday by urging for an urgent cease-fire in Mariupol to allow an estimated 100,000 besieged civilians to flee.
Safe and effective humanitarian corridors are urgently needed to evacuate civilians and provide aid, Guterres said at a news conference after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier Tuesday.
He proposed coordination between the United Nations, the Red Cross, and Ukrainian and Russian forces to allow civilians to leave “both inside and outside the Azovstal plant and in the city, in any direction they choose, and to deliver the humanitarian aid required” to deal with “the crisis within a crisis in Mariupol.”
The UN chief also advocated forming a Humanitarian Contact Group made up of Russia, Ukraine, and the UN to “search for options for the opening of safe corridors, with local cease-fires, and to ensure that these are genuinely effective.”
Dujarric made no mention of a broader evacuation of residents from Mariupol or Guterres’ Humanitarian Contact Group, but evacuating civilians from the steel mill would be a critical first step.
Women and children shut up underground at the facility, some for as long as two months, expressed their desire to see the sun in a video released by a Ukrainian military unit on Saturday.
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