Meeting on Independence Day
The UN Security Council will hold a meeting on Monday, 24 August 2026 — Ukraine's Independence Day — to discuss the situation around Russia's war against Ukraine. According to available information, the meeting is set to begin at 15:00 Eastern Time, which corresponds to 22:00 Kyiv time. The choice of date coincides with a key national holiday in Ukraine and underscores the political significance of the agenda.
Initiative by five European countries
The discussion of this issue was initiated by five European members of the Security Council — Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia and the United Kingdom. Denmark is presiding over the Security Council in August, so the meeting was expected to be chaired by Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. The coalition of initiators shows that the topic remains at the centre of attention for both permanent and non-permanent European members of the body.
Speakers and format
On behalf of the UN, the meeting is expected to feature briefings by the Assistant Secretaries-General for political and humanitarian affairs — Rosemary DiCarlo and Tom Fletcher. Their presentations are expected to set the framework for the discussion: from a political assessment of the course of the conflict to the humanitarian consequences for Ukraine's citizens and surrounding regions.
Context: the role of the UN and food security
The role of the UN in finding ways to end the war has been raised repeatedly in recent days. The day before, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the UN would join the search for paths to peace in Ukraine, noting that Russian strikes carry consequences for other countries as well. This concerns, in particular, food security: Russia's attacks on the ports of Odesa have nearly halted the export of Ukrainian grain in the middle of the harvest, and analysts forecast that as a result Ukraine's GDP this year could shrink by 2%. As late as the end of July, the UN acknowledged that Russia's attacks on ports and ships threaten food security worldwide.
