Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya walks to the podium during the 11th emergency special session of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S. February 28, 2022. REUTERS.
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations General Assembly opened an extraordinary emergency session Monday with pleas for peace in Ukraine, starting a day of frenzied diplomacy at the U.N.
Assembly President Abdulla Shahid asked envoys from the U.N.’s 193 member nations to stand for a moment of silence at the start of the session, the assembly’s first emergency meeting in decades. Shahid repeated calls for an immediate cease-fire, maximum restraint by all parties and "a full return to diplomacy and dialogue.”
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council was due to meet later Monday to discuss the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
With Russian and Ukrainian officials holding talks on the Belarus border, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said told the assembly he hoped those discussions could lead to a halt in the fighting.
"The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open,” he said. "We need peace now.”
