United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Wednesday that a cease-fire in Russia's war with Ukraine "doesn't seem possible" now, but he hopes negotiations could allow for civilian evacuations in areas where there is fighting.
"A global cease-fire, at the present moment, doesn't seem to be possible," Guterres said during a press conference Wednesday. "But there are lots of things that can be done in order to guarantee evacuation of civilians from areas of fighting, in order of guaranteeing humanitarian access in a reliable situation."
He made the remarks the day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that peace talks had hit a "dead end," and that his forces would "rhythmically and calmly" continue operations started on Feb. 24 to complete its objectives, Reuters reported.
According to the report, Putin said Russia had to mount the invasion to defend the "Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine," and prevent the country from becoming a "springboard" for Russia's enemies.
He also claimed myriad sanctions imposed by the United States and other Western nations were not working out as they had planned.
"That blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting did not work," Putin said. "The United States is ready to fight with Russia until the last Ukrainian — that is the way it is."
Guterres said that he thought there "were a number of moments" that a cease-fire might have been reached to get needed humanitarian aid into Ukraine and have ways to evacuate civilians that want to leave the war zone.
"We have had a number of moments in which it was said that there was a local cease-fire and that things would happen, and then things did not happen, and then everybody accuses everybody of everything," he said. "Instead of this, what we need is to bring the parties together and to manage together situations like this to make sure that we have adequate evacuations, to make sure that we have adequate humanitarian access to the populations in need."
He said that the conflict is "supercharging a three-dimensional crisis," including food, energy, and finance, which is hurting the poorest countries in the world while they try to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"All this comes at a time when developing countries are already struggling with a slate of challenges not of their making — the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and a lack of access to adequate resources to finance the recovery in the context of persistent and growing inequalities," he said. "We are now facing a perfect storm that threatens to devastate the economies of many developing countries."
He said that the war was impacting as many as 1.7 billion people, with a third of them already living in poverty, susceptible to disruptions in the supply of food, energy, and finances caused by the war.
"Thirty-six countries count on Russia and Ukraine for more than half of their wheat imports — including some of the poorest and most vulnerable countries of the world," he said. "Prices were already on the rise — but the war has made a bad situation far worse."
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