UNITED NATIONS, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday, urging Kiev to find a peaceful resolution to the country's conflict, Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced.
Dujarric said Ban's “message was the one he's been giving to other as well, to open up a dialogue to find a negotiated settlement, more importantly a peaceful settlement, of the ongoing situation.”
Ban's Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman canceled a previously announced trip to Ukraine and Moscow.
“We will most likely be able to announce a rescheduling of that travel fairly quickly,” Dujarric said Wednesday.
According to a UN human rights spokeswoman, the death toll from Kiev’s military operation in southeastern Ukraine nearly doubled from July 26 to August 10 and is now 2,086.
Kiev has been conducting a military operation in southeastern Ukraine since mid-April. As the conflict continues to escalate, the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are currently facing a humanitarian catastrophe.
Russia has repeatedly urged the Ukrainian government to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
As of August 11, the number of Ukrainian refugees sheltered in Russia had reached more than 51,000 people. According to the United Nations, the total number of people who have fled Ukraine to Russia since the beginning of 2014 is about 730,000.
