Kazan, Russia  -  Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will meet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday during his first trip to the country since April 2022, the Kremlin announced. The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the central Russian city of Kazan, a forum Moscow hopes to use to show the West that attempts to isolate Russia over the Ukraine offensive have failed. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Monday that Putin would hold bilateral talks with Guterres on October 24, without providing details of what the pair would discuss. Guterres has repeatedly criticised Moscow’s military offensive on Ukraine and said it sets a “dangerous precedent” for the world. He has called for a “just peace” that respects international law and Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.”

During his April 2022 visit, two months after Russia launched its offensive, Guterres had outlined the UN’s position on the conflict and discussed with Putin proposals for humanitarian assistance and the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones, according to a UN readout of the meeting. There are no signs that either Kyiv or Moscow is yet open to wider talks on a settlement to end the two-and-a-half-year conflict. Putin has demanded Ukraine effectively capitulate by abandoning more territory in its south and east as a precondition to a ceasefire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to countenance ceding land to secure a peace deal and ruled out direct talks with Putin.

Speaking at the United Nations last month, Zelensky told the Security Council -- of which Russia is a permanent member -- that Moscow “can only be forced into peace.”