Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a global food crisis aggravated by the war will be the focus of world leaders when they convene at the United Nations in New York this week, a gathering that is unlikely to yield any progress toward ending the conflict.
"It would be naive to think that we are close to the possibility of a peace deal," said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ahead of the high-level meeting of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, which starts on Tuesday. "The chances of a peace deal are minimal, at the present moment."
Guterres said the geopolitical rifts were "the widest they have been since at least the Cold War." He warned they "are paralyzing the global response to the dramatic challenges we face," citing war, climate, poverty, hunger, and inequality. "Underlying a lot of these meetings will be a huge amount of tension between Western countries and representatives of the global south in particular," said Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.
Macron intends to use his two-day visit to New York to lobby countries that have remained neutral in the war to try and bring them onside with the West, French officials said, with a focus India, Gulf countries, Africa and some Latin American states. However, the General Assembly agreed on Friday to allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy send a pre-recorded video statement. The decision was adopted with 101 votes in favor, 7 against and 19 abstentions.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that so far Lavrov had received requests for about 20 meetings with other leaders.
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