the Guardian By Warren Murray with Guardian writers and agencies
Secretary general did not immediately confirm trip which Ukrainian foreign ministry says ‘damages UN reputation’; two dead in Zaporizhzhia attack. What we know on day 972.
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Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will meet the UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Thursday to discuss the Ukraine conflict, according to the Kremlin, in what would be the UN chief’s first trip to Russia in more than two years. The UN did not immediately confirm the planned meeting, which Ukraine strongly criticised, saying: “The UN secretary general declined Ukraine’s invitation to the first global peace summit in Switzerland. He did, however, accept the invitation to Kazan from war criminal Putin.”
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The meeting was apparently scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the Brics summit in the central Russian city of Kazan. Guterres has previously criticised Moscow’s war on Ukraine but Ukraine’s foreign ministry said meeting Putin now “does not advance the cause of peace” and “damages the UN’s reputation”. Asked at a briefing in New York whether Guterres was intending to travel to Kazan later this week, a spokesperson said: “Announcements on his future travels will be later on down the line.”
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A Russian missile attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed two people and injured 15 in the city centre while causing huge damage to civilian infrastructure, including a kindergarten and more than 30 residential buildings, said the regional governor, Ivan Fedorov, on Monday.
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It would be a “dangerous and highly concerning development” if North Korea was sending troops to help Russia in Ukraine, the US said on Monday as South Korea and Britain warned of the high price Moscow would likely have to pay Pyongyang. Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, examines the situation after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported that 1,500 members of Pyongyang’s special forces had crossed the border to Vladivostok in Russia’s far east to begin training and some degree of participation in the war in Ukraine. “They represent the first element of what could be a 12,000-strong, four-brigade deployment,” he writes.
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Regardless of troop commitments, Dan Sabbagh continues, “South Korean intelligence has touched on something more significant, at least for Russia. The NIS believes it has monitored 70 shipments of munitions – shells, missiles and anti-tank rockets – going from North Korea to Russia since August last year, transporting on its estimate 8m rounds of arms, including Russian 152mm and 122mm shells so crucial for Moscow’s destructive frontline assaults.”
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South Korea has summoned the Russian ambassador to protest “in the strongest terms” about the reported dispatch of thousands of North Korean troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine. The Guardian’s Justin McCurry reports from Tokyo that South Korea’s first vice-foreign minister, Kim Hong-kyun, told the Russian envoy, Georgy Zinoviev, that the participation of North Korean troops in the war violated UN resolutions and demanded their immediate withdrawal…
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