UN chief defends Putin meeting: “It’s important to speak to those who “cause or can solve the problem”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it was appropriate to pay a visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to him, finding answers required “dealing with people who cause the problem or who can fix the problem.”

Guterres met with Putin in Moscow before travelling to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

His itinerary has been heavily criticized.

The UN head stated that the Putin summit yielded “concrete results,” including the evacuation of citizens stranded in Mariupol.

“I think the lives that were rescued of civilians that were in the bunkers of Mariupol deserve that I meet anybody in any part of the world without having any doubt that that is the right thing to do,” Guterres said.

Guterres spoke with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at a press conference on Wednesday.

Nehammer also defended his decision to travel to Moscow, saying, “there cannot be one talk too many, only one too few.”