The plane carrying the head of Russian diplomacy to New York, where he will attend the UN General Assembly, will have to avoid the airspace of countries that have closed it to Russian planes because of the war in Ukraine.

“The road has no scales and will fly in airspace closed by hostile countries”, the flight being planned for extend 12.5 hourssaid Sergei Riabkov, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and “number two” of Sergei Lavrov, on Tuesday, quoted by the Russian news agency TASS.

Russian planes are prohibited from flying over the airspace of the European Union (EU), as well as that of other non-EU countries, such as the United Kingdom, Norway or Switzerland, in addition to the Canada and the United States themselves.

The Baltics have started to apply the agreement to close the borders to the Russians

The route that Lavrov’s plane will take has not been announced.

For the United States, however, Lavrov and his delegation received the necessary visas to enter the country, but only to attend the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.where the head of Russian diplomacy will make an intervention and will have about twenty bilateral meetings, said last week the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova.

At the time, the “logistical question” related to Lavrov’s trip to the United States remained to be settled.

This Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that Lavrov will defend, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, Moscow’s position to “end the unipolar world”.

Putin suspends the world and postpones his speech until Wednesday. The reasons are not known

After receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors in Moscow, Putin promised to maintain Russia’s “sovereign foreign policy” and accused the United States of wanting to impose “hegemony” on the General Assembly of the United States. UN.

Although he sent Lavrov to New York, Putin does not plan to make a speech at this year’s General Assembly because Russian intervention in Ukraine has been widely condemned around the world.

The development of multipolarity comes up against resistance from those who strive to maintain a hegemonic role in world affairs and to control everything: Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. (…) But this cannot last forever. It’s impossible,” Putin said.

“We in Russia are not going to abandon our sovereign path. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, we want to promote a unifying international agenda […] and contribute to the regulation of serious regional crises,” he added.

The United Nations General Assembly’s high-level week began Tuesday, at UN headquarters in New York, and will continue until next Monday, with the presence of dozens of heads of state and government, including the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa.

Costa addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday

This is the first General Assembly since the start of the war in Ukraine and the first face-to-face since the start of the pandemic.

The event is being held under the theme “A Decisive Moment: Transformative Solutions to Interconnected Challenges”, and will focus on the war in Ukraine and the global food, climate and energy crises.