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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday made an impassioned plea for Russia to halt its military attack on Ukraine at an emergency meeting aimed at further isolating Moscow on the world stage.
Mr Guterres said Russian missiles and air strikes were “pounding Ukrainian cities day and night”, that the capital city Kiev was “encircled and under attack from all sides” and that the large-scale assault “must stop now”.
The UN chief also called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision on Sunday to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert a “chilling development”. The move has also been condemned by the US and others.
“The mere idea of a nuclear conflict is simply inconceivable. Nothing can justify the use of nuclear weapons,” Mr Guterres told a rare emergency special session of the UN's 193-member General Assembly to discuss whether to condemn Russia’s “unprovoked armed aggression” in Ukraine and demand its immediate withdrawal.
“In the face of the continuing Russian attacks, Kiev’s three million residents are being forced to seek safety in their homes, improvised bomb shelters and in the city’s subways," said Mr Guterres.
“Although Russian strikes are reportedly largely targeting Ukrainian military facilities, we have credible accounts of residential buildings, critical civilian infrastructure and other non-military targets sustaining heavy damage.”
All UN member states have a chance to speak at the debate and to cast votes — making the event a barometer of global attitudes towards the situation in Ukraine and the worst fighting Europe has seen in years.
It is only the 11th time in the UN's history that such an emergency session has been held. It began with diplomats standing for one minute in silence to honour the victims of fighting in Ukraine before assembly president Abdulla Shahid spoke, calling for "an immediate ceasefire".
The US and others backing the document hope to get more than 100 votes in favour — though countries including Syria, Venezuela, China, Cuba and India are expected to either support Russia or abstain.
Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said Mr Putin's "madness" was a threat to global security on par with the events preceding the Second World War.
"Today, the Russian army shelled with multiple rocket launcher systems the residential areas of the city of Kharkiv, the second biggest in Ukraine," said Mr Kyslytsya.
"Innocent civilians have been killed and wounded. The exact numbers, it's very difficult to estimate because so far, the warfare [continued] while the negotiations [were] still under way at the border with Belarus."
Russia's UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia blamed Ukraine for the war and for unleashing violence "against its own residents" in the breakaway pro-Moscow eastern regions.
Moscow wants "to end this war", added Mr Nebenzia.
Later, Mr Nebenzia told reporters that Russia was "not isolated" and complained that the US had expelled a dozen Russian diplomats from the country's mission to the UN in New York.
Given the lengthy list of speakers, the debate and voting could take more than a day.
The meeting was the latest in a flurry of diplomacy at the UN. Russia on Friday vetoed a draft Security Council resolution that would have condemned Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
China, the UAE and India abstained and the remaining 11 members voted yes.
Later on Monday, the Security Council is set to hold emergency talks on the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, where as many as seven million people are expected to flee the fighting.
Mr Putin on February 24 launched a large-scale military assault into neighbouring Ukraine, deploying tens of thousands of troops in and around the country, equipped with tanks, fighter jets and ships.
Russia has since become a global pariah as ordinary Ukrainians take up arms to defend their country. Moscow has been hit by wide-ranging sanctions including a ban from western airspace and key financial networks.
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A monitor displays a projectile striking the regional state administration building in Kharkiv, as the Russian invasion continues. Reuters -
People help a wounded woman in the aftermath of Russian shelling in Kharkiv. EPA -
Ukrainian emergency service personnel carry the body of a victim following shelling in Kharkiv. AP -
Students who fled the conflict rest in a refugee camp in Voluntari, Romania. AP -
Members of an Ukrainian civil defence unit pass new assault rifles to the opposite side of a blown-up bridge on Kiev’s northern front. AFP -
Civilians cross a river on Kiev's northern front. AFP -
A woman takes photos of a destroyed accommodation building near a checkpoint in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP -
The city hall of Kharkiv, damaged by Russian shelling. AFP -
Debris litters the square outside the damaged Kharkiv city hall. AFP -
A Ukrainian woman sleeps on the floor of the railway station in Zahonyi close to the Hungary/Ukraine border. AFP -
A medical worker attends to wounded man at a hospital in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP -
Refugees from Ukraine in a tent at the Medyka border crossing, Poland. AP -
Debris outside the regional administration building, which city officials said was hit by a missile, in Kharkiv. Reuters -
A student evacuated from Ukraine is embraced by her family after arriving at Tunis-Carthage International Airport in Tunisia. AFP -
Rescuers in a building damaged by a missile in central Kharkiv. Reuters -
An ambulance is visible through the damaged window of a vehicle hit by bullets in Kiev, Ukraine. Reuters -
Territorial defence members prepare to head out on patrol in Kiev. EPA -
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech on screen during the opening of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. AP -
A policeman detains a young demonstrator during a protest against Russia's attack on Ukraine in St Petersburg, Russia. AP -
Local residents in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, prepare Molotov cocktails. Reuters -
Residents clean a bomb shelter under an out-of-service cinema in central Zhytomyr. Reuters -
Ukrainian volunteers tear cloth into strips to make camouflage nets in Lviv, western Ukraine. AP -
Part of the military convoy north-west of Invankiv, Ukraine. AP -
Mark Goncharuk, a young boy from Kiev, leaves his father behind as he travels with the rest of his family towards the border. Reuters -
People hold an anti-war protest outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. Reuters -
A crater caused by shelling on the outskirts of Kiev. AFP -
People queue outside a grocery store in the Ukrainian capital. EPA -
Ukrainian soldiers stand at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kiev. EPA -
Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, second left, and Davyd Arakhamia, faction leader of the Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian Parliament, third right, attend the peace talks in the Gomel region of Belarus. AP -
People who have fled the Russian invasion in Ukraine, clamour to board a bus bound for a refugee centre established in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters -
Hanna Pavlovna Lukasz, from Mirhord, Ukraine, said her sons, aged 12 and 8, and her 66-year-old mother had been waiting on the Ukrainian side of the border crossing with Medyka, Poland, for four days. AP -
A volunteer from Kiev prepares a rear post with trenches in the city. AFP -
A child being treated for cancer rests in the bomb shelter of the oncology ward at a hospital in Kiev. Getty -
Police officers check occupants of a suspicious car in Kiev, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. Reuters -
A woman from Ukraine uses a phone to listen to a speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a refugee shelter in Beregsurany, Hungary. Reuters -
Shelves empty of bread after a curfew was lifted as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kiev. Reuters -
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, left, and President Zelenskyy. AFP -
Snow-covered shoes donated for those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland. Reuters -
People who have fled Ukraine wait for a bus to transport them away from the border crossing in Medyka. Reuters -
Norwegian soldiers of the Nato-enhanced forward presence battalion pose at a military plane as they arrive at an airport in Kaunas, Lithuania. AP -
A person fleeing Ukraine sits during snowfall at a temporary camp in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters -
Footage reportedly of Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road before a drone strike near Malyn, Ukraine. Reuters -
An explosion after what are said to be Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road are struck by a drone. Reuters -
The monument to Russian troops from the Second World War, after the figures’ hands were painted red, at the Red Army memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria. EPA -
The Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, is lit up with the colours of Ukraine’s national flag in a show of support. AP -
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the construction site of the National Space Agency on the premises of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, in Moscow. EPA -
A man looks out from a train, at the railway station in Lviv, Ukraine. The UN has estimated the conflict could produce as many as four million refugees. AP -
A Ukrainian boy waits for his mother after passing the border crossing point in Siret, northern Romania. EPA -
Russian policemen detain a demonstrator in St Petersburg, during a protest against the country's military actions in Ukraine. EPA -
Ukrainian soldiers at a check point in the city of Zhytomyr. Reuters -
Residents prepare petrol bombs to defend the city, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. Reuters -
A pro-Russian fighter sits inside a tank in the separatist self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, in the Luhansk region, Ukraine. Reuters -
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, second left, and Head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and First Deputy Defence Minister Valery Gerasimov, left, during their meeting in Moscow. AP -
Ukrainians and supporters gather during a demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens against the Russian military's operation in Ukraine. AFP -
Ukrainian Territorial Defence fighters test an automatic grenade launcher taken from a destroyed Russian infantry mobility vehicla after a battle in Kharkiv. AFP
