UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres arrived in Moscow today for a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin. Claiming to come as a “messenger of peace,” Guterres expressed the arguments of the Western “war party"—that Russia had violated the UN Charter and international law, had illegally occupied Ukraine, and had failed to establish “effective” humanitarian corridors by which Ukrainian could be evacuated, especially those from Mariupol. His meeting with Lavrov was contentious, as Lavrov challenged the premises of these arguments.
Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire and proposed—as Kiev has done—that Russia coordinate with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to set up humanitarian corridors with Ukraine so that the civilians “holed up” at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol can be evacuated. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that the Azov Brigade Nazis have prevented any military or civilians who wish to surrender or leave that complex, from doing so, as per the Nazi practice of using civilians as human shields. The underlying argument is that Russia is responsible for “failed” corridors.
The Azov Nazis have been desperately trying to arrange for their own evacuation out of Mariupol to a “third country” to escape prosecution. As Putin indicated, there are no combat operations currently taking place at the plant. According to TASS, Putin told Guterres that if there are civilians at the Azovstal plant, Ukrainian forces “are obliged to let them go. “ Otherwise,” he said, “they act the way terrorists do in many countries of the world, like the Islamic State in Syria, by using the civilian population as a shield. To let these people go is a very simple thing.”
Putin informed Guterres that he, Guterres, had been badly misinformed that Russia’s humanitarian corridors don’t work. As many as 130,000 to 140,000 people had left Mariupol with Russian assistance, he said, and “they are free to go where they wish.” Putin also denied that Russia isn’t open to negotiations with Kiev. He noted that certain progress had been achieved at the talks at Istanbul, which Russia viewed favorably, but then the “provocation at Bucha” occurred, which was blamed on the Russian army. After that, everything changed, and the Ukrainians backtracked on commitments they had previously made regarding the territories of Crimea, Sevastopol, and the republics of the Donbass. Nonetheless, negotiations continue, he said.
