Moscow, Feb 23 : Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres turned out to be under the Western pressure over the situation in Ukraine as he was making statements not corresponding to his status and authority under the UN Charter. On Tuesday, Guterres said that the Russian recognition of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics were the violation of the Minsk Agreements and the “death blow” to the Minsk Agreements.
“To our greatest regret, the UN secretary general, whom you represent, has been subject to pressure from the West and has recently made several statements about what is happening in eastern Ukraine that are not corresponding to his status and his authority under the UN charter,” Lavrov told UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen in Moscow. Lavrov said that Guterres never spoke about the situation in Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
The Russian minister highlighted that the UN secretariat should advocate impartiality in any crisis, including the Ukrainian one. Lavrov noted that Russia has already briefed Guterres on the Moscow’s assessment of his statements through the Russian permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, Vasily Nebenzya. The Russian minister also asked Pedersen to convey the Russian assessment to the secretary general personally.
