Russia-Ukraine live news: Zelenskyy slams UN chief’s Russia visit | Russia-Ukraine war News
Ukraine’s president criticises decision by Antonio Guterres to head to Moscow before visiting Kyiv next week.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised a decision by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Moscow on Tuesday before heading to Kyiv.
- Zelenskyy said Ukraine hoped to secure heavy weapons at talks with the US secretaries of state and defense in Kyiv on Sunday.
- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says it is working to secure the release of a number of Special Monitoring Mission members detained in eastern Ukraine.
- A series of cruise missile attacks killed at least eight people in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Kyiv officials say.
- Ukraine says Russian troops are trying to storm Mariupol steel plant where holdout fighters and civilians are hunkered down.
Here are the latest updates:
OSCE working to secure release of staff held in eastern Ukraine
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said it was trying to secure the release of a number of Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) staff members who had been detained in eastern Ukraine.
“The OSCE is extremely concerned that a number of SMM national mission members have been deprived of their liberty in Donetsk and Luhansk. The OSCE is using all available channels to facilitate the release of its staff,” its media office said, giving no more details.
In an address to the 157-member body on Friday, the UK’s deputy ambassador to the Vienna-based OSCE, Deirdre Brown, criticised Russia for refusing to extend the SMM’s mission in Ukraine beyond March, and said that the UK had “received alarming reports that Russia’s proxies in Donbas are threatening mission staff, equipment and premises and that Russian forces have taken SMM staff members captive”.
Zelenskyy: Kyiv meeting set with US officials
Ukraine’s president said he hoped to secure heavy weapons at talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Kyiv on Sunday, supplies that he said were vital for Ukraine to eventually retake Russian-occupied territory.
“As soon as we have [more weapons], as soon as there are enough of them, believe me, we will immediately retake this or that territory, which is temporarily occupied,” he told reporters.
Zelenskyy slams UN chief’s ‘illogical’ plan to visit Moscow before Kyiv
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised a decision by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Moscow on Tuesday before heading to Kyiv on Thursday.
“It is simply wrong to go first to Russia and then to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy told reporters in the Ukraine capital. “There is no justice and no logic in this order,” he added.
“The war is in Ukraine, there are no bodies in the streets of Moscow. It would be logical to go first to Ukraine, to see the people there, the consequences of the occupation,” he said.
Zelenskyy also called again for a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in an effort to “put an end to the war”.
Welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Read all the updates from Saturday, April 23 here.
