António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, doubtless meant well by travelling to Moscow for talks about the invasion of Ukraine in the hope of bringing about peace. But he risked giving Russia’s leaders the spurious credibility of grandstanding alongside the representative of the very body charged with upholding international law.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, milked the occasion to maintain that his country was a diligent adherent to a system that had been hijacked by the West. He repeated the canard that Russia was engaged in a “special military operation” against Ukrainian Nazis and was at pains to avoid civilian casualties and secure aid for those caught up in the fighting.
Mr Guterres knows this to be rubbish and was at least able to inform Russian TV viewers, possibly for the first time, that their country had been pilloried in the UN for violating the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine. Mr Lavrov blustered that countries voting against Russia had been blackmailed by America. Mr Guterres countered that one thing could not be contested: Russian troops were in Ukraine but not vice versa.
If the secretary-general managed to sow some seeds of doubt into Russians fed relentless propaganda about their illegal and savage invasion, he might have done some good; otherwise it was a grotesque spectacle whereby Mr Lavrov sought to portray the Russians as the wronged party.
Mr Guterres later headed for Kyiv, where he should have gone first to demonstrate that the UN knows who is in the right here and who is in the wrong. As President Zelensky observed: “There are no bodies in the streets of Moscow.”
António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, doubtless meant well by travelling to Moscow for talks about the invasion of Ukraine in the hope of bringing about peace. But he risked giving Russia’s leaders the spurious credibility of grandstanding alongside the representative of the very body charged with upholding international law.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, milked the occasion to maintain that his country was a diligent adherent to a system that had been hijacked by the West. He repeated the canard that Russia was engaged in a “special military operation” against Ukrainian Nazis and was at pains to avoid civilian casualties and secure aid for those caught up in the fighting.
Mr Guterres knows this to be rubbish and was at least able to inform Russian TV viewers, possibly for the first time, that their country had been pilloried in the UN for violating the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine. Mr Lavrov blustered that countries voting against Russia had been blackmailed by America. Mr Guterres countered that one thing could not be contested: Russian troops were in Ukraine but not vice versa.
If the secretary-general managed to sow some seeds of doubt into Russians fed relentless propaganda about their illegal and savage invasion, he might have done some good; otherwise it was a grotesque spectacle whereby Mr Lavrov sought to portray the Russians as the wronged party.
Mr Guterres later headed for Kyiv, where he should have gone first to demonstrate that the UN knows who is in the right here and who is in the wrong. As President Zelensky observed: “There are no bodies in the streets of Moscow.”