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Lavrov, Guterres and Moldova: 26 April 2022 explained
Summary
A look back at a day when warnings over weapons deliveries, a UN visit to Moscow and a Moldovan security meeting converged.
What did diplomacy look like in the third month of Russia's full-scale invasion? On 26 April 2022, it was a day of warnings, appeals and alarm in neighbouring Moldova.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that weapons supplied to Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia's military, and that storage facilities in western Ukraine had been targeted. He also said NATO was, in essence, engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy, and was arming that proxy. War, he said, meant war.
His remarks came two days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin travelled to Ukraine on 24 April 2022. They met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, in what was the highest-level American visit to the city since the invasion began. Zelenskyy was informed of newly approved military assistance for Ukraine.
A UN visit to Moscow
On 26 April 2022, UN Secretary-General António Guterres went to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Before the meeting, Guterres called for a ceasefire to end the war.
Alarm in Moldova
The conflict also drew attention to the region around Ukraine. Moldova's Supreme Security Council held an emergency meeting on 26 April 2022, following attacks the previous day in the breakaway region of Transnistria. President Maia Sandu said the attacks aimed at destabilising the situation in the region. She added that the military would improve its combat readiness and increase patrols on the border with Transnistria.
Taken together, the day's events showed several tracks running at once: Western military support for Kyiv, Moscow's threats against those supply lines, a UN push for a ceasefire, and a neighbouring state tightening its security posture.
