ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi stressed the “need of de-escalation” during a phone call with his Ukrainian colleague, Dmytro Kuleba, as Kiev confronts a Russian invasion.
“Foreign Minister Qureshi shared Pakistan’s perspective in detail, reiterating serious concern about the situation, emphasising the importance of de-escalation, and emphasising the indispensability of diplomacy,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said of Pakistan’s top diplomat’s phone call with Ukraine’s Kuleba.
He praised Ukraine’s assistance in the “evacuation process” and appealed for “continued facilitation and easy border crossing as soon as feasible.”
Following President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of war, Russia started an assault by land, air, and sea on Thursday. An estimated 100,000 individuals fled as major cities were shaken by explosions and gunfire. Dozens of people have been slain, according to reports.
According to US and Ukrainian officials, Russia’s goal is to seize Kyiv and destabilise the administration, which Putin perceives as a puppet of the US. Russian forces took control of the former Chernobyl nuclear power facility north of Kyiv as they pushed via the shortest path from Belarus to the north.
On the fourth day of the greatest attack on a European state since WWII, the Ukrainian president’s administration announced that talks between Kyiv and Moscow would take place near the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. It said that they will meet without preconditions.
Despite Russian bombing of civilian infrastructure, Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, remains in government control, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rallying his people.