Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Antonio Guterres said “There will be an end, there is an end of everything, but I do not see an end of the war in the immediate future. I do not see a chance at the present moment to have a serious peace negotiation between the two parties.”

Reiterating that the February 24 Russian invasion violated international law and the UN Charter, the Secretary-General underscored the difficulty of ending the violence, when the two sides continued to have “two different ideas about what the Russian empire was, what the nationalities were.

“This makes it more difficult to find a solution, but that solution needs to be based on international law and needs to respect territorial integrity. I don’t see conditions for that to happen in the immediate future.”

With Ukrainian and Russian fighters entrenched in a war of attrition, Mr. Guterres insisted that the UN had nonetheless helped to secure the support of Kyiv and Moscow to ship desperately-needed grain and fertilizer to countries either facing or trying to ward off spiralling food insecurity.

To date, 17.8 million tonnes of commodities have been shipped under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, to countries including Afghanistan, China, Israel, Kenya and Tunisia, with corn, wheat and sunflower meal or oil delivered in the greatest quantities.

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