The UN has approximately 1,660 employees in Ukraine, including 1,440 Ukrainians and 220 foreigners.
United Nations:
UN chief Antonio Guterres spoke to the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine on Monday and expressed “serious concern” over the escalating tensions between the countries, his spokesman said.
During the telephone conversation, Guterres told Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba that diplomacy is the only way, spokesman Stepan Dujarric said.
“The Secretary-General conveyed his serious concern to the two foreign ministers at the escalating tensions around Ukraine,” Dujarric told reporters.
“They welcomed the ongoing diplomatic discussions to defuse those tensions and underlined again the fact that there is no substitute for diplomacy,” the spokesman said.
Dujarric said Guterres was still confident that Russia would not invade Ukraine, a position he expressed during a news conference on January 21.
“I don’t think his opinion has changed in any way,” the spokesman said during his daily briefing at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The world body’s chief was due on Monday to attend a monthly lunch with 15 of the UN Security Council’s envoys at the diplomatic mission of Russia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the council.
Dujarric said Guterres would then make a statement to the media.
The United Nations has approximately 1,660 employees in Ukraine, including 1,440 Ukrainians and 220 foreigners.
“There are no plans to remove or transfer UN staff from Ukraine,” Dujarric said.
The Security Council is scheduled to hold an annual meeting on Thursday on the Ukraine and Minsk agreements, which called for an end to the war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.
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