NEW YORK - (Xinhua) - UN Secretary-General António Guterres continues to press for a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine even though Russia's UN envoys said a ceasefire is not a good option for now, a United Nations spokesman said.

"We continue to call for a ceasefire or some kind of pause. And the Secretary-General did that, as you know, just last week. And that obviously didn't happen in time for (Orthodox) Easter," said Farhan Haq, Guterres' deputy spokesman. .

"I don't want to give too much detail at this point on what kind of proposals he's going to have," he said in a daily press briefing. "I think we're going through a rather delicate moment. It's important that he be able to talk clearly with the leadership on both sides and see what progress we can make." achieve it.”

"At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to stop the fighting and find ways to improve the situation of people in Ukraine, reduce the threat to them, provide humanitarian assistance (to them). So, those are the goals that we are trying to achieve, and there are certain ways that we will try to move forward," he said. with it.”

Guterres left Turkey on his way to Moscow. He will hold a business meeting and lunch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday, and will be received by President Vladimir Putin. Guterres will then travel to Ukraine and hold a working meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and President Volodymyr Zelensky will receive him on Thursday.

Before his trips to Moscow and Kiev, Guterres stopped in Turkey, where he discussed the Ukrainian issue with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Haq noted that the Secretary-General is making these trips because he believes there is an opportunity now.

"A lot of diplomacy is about timing, about knowing when is the right time to talk to someone, to travel somewhere, to do certain things. He goes in anticipation that there is a real opportunity that can be exploited now, and we will see what we can make of it," he explained.

Dmitry Polyansky, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said on Monday that now is not the time for a ceasefire.
"We do not think that a ceasefire is a good option at the moment. The only advantage it will offer is that it will give the Ukrainian forces the possibility to regroup and carry out more provocations like the one in Bucha," he added, adding that "it is not up to me to decide, but I I see no reason for that now."