--- title: "Guterres’s UN Decade Ends With Ukraine and Gaza Beyond Quiet Diplomacy’s Reach" description: "He brokered grain shipments and led on climate, but Gaza and Ukraine exposed the limits of patient, quiet mediation." author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-16T12:57:47Z modified: 2026-10-16T17:38:42Z url: https://rews.cc/a/guterres-s-un-decade-ends-with-ukraine-and-gaza-beyond-quiet-7054b6 language: en tags: ["un", "guterres", "diplomacy", "ukraine", "gaza", "world"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Guterres’s UN Decade Ends With Ukraine and Gaza Beyond Quiet Diplomacy’s Reach *He brokered grain shipments and led on climate, but Gaza and Ukraine exposed the limits of patient, quiet mediation.* By rews desk · October 16, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/guterres-s-un-decade-ends-with-ukraine-and-gaza-beyond-quiet-7054b6 ## In brief - Guterres’s second term as UN secretary-general ends on Dec. 31, with a successor due to be chosen in the coming weeks - His 2022 Black Sea grain deal succeeded, but a 2024 BRICS summit handshake with Putin cost him a planned Kyiv visit - He invoked Article 99 over Gaza in December 2023; the US vetoed the resolution and Israel later barred him from the country - A Crisis Group assessment credited his caution on peacekeeping but said he had been burned by failed mediation in Cyprus and Libya - He has shifted energy to climate advocacy, calling the crisis a choice between collective action and collective suicide António Guterres entered the closing months of his decade as United Nations secretary-general this month with the two biggest wars of his tenure, in Ukraine and in Gaza, beyond the reach of the quiet diplomacy he made his calling card. His second and final term ends on Dec. 31, and the Security Council is expected to pick his successor in the coming weeks; the next secretary-general takes office on Jan. 1, 2027, [according to the Council on Foreign Relations](https://www.cfr.org/articles/who-will-be-the-next-un-secretary-general). The record Guterres leaves, as [an Al Jazeera assessment of his tenure](https://aljazeera.com/features/longform/2026/10/16/how-un-chief-antonio-guterres-tests-the-limits-of-quiet-diplomacy) lays out this week, is one of real results at the margins and frustration at the center. On Feb. 24, 2022, as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine and civilians sheltered in Kyiv’s Metro, Guterres condemned the invasion at an emergency Security Council session and appealed directly to President Vladimir Putin. “In the name of humanity, bring your troops back to Russia,” he said. Mr. Putin ignored the plea. Two months later, on April 26, Guterres sat down with him in Moscow to discuss evacuation routes from besieged areas including Mariupol, and met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv days later. ![A long conference table with empty chairs and an olive branch faces an enormous tank tread crushing blue and yellow paper against a blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/adf30bf8791947247c05c0778a187dc9feda6558.webp) The diplomacy paid off that summer. Guterres brokered the 2022 Black Sea grain deal, opening safe passage for Ukrainian grain ships from the country’s southern ports and for Russian vessels carrying food and fertilizer. But his dealings with Moscow cost him in Kyiv. In 2024, after Guterres attended a BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, shook Mr. Putin’s hand and called for a “just peace” — with the Russian leader by then wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes — Mr. Zelenskyy turned away his planned visit. Ukrainian officials, European leaders and human rights groups had criticized the trip. Gaza cut deeper. After Hamas-led fighters killed more than 1,100 Israelis and foreign nationals on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel answered with a bombardment of Gaza that struck hospitals, refugee camps and designated safe zones, Guterres said the attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” Israeli leaders condemned the remark; he clarified that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas,” and kept pressing for a cease-fire. An estimated 75,000 Palestinians had been violently killed by early 2025, and the UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejects. ![A microphone sends sound waves toward a tall, cracked concrete barrier, with ruined buildings behind it against a blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/60c2b31ae60ce62b6fe4eae9c0bbd190a821d80e.webp) On Dec. 6, 2023, he invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, a rarely used power to bring any threat to international peace before the 15-member Security Council, and asked members to “avert a humanitarian catastrophe.” Two days later the United States vetoed the resolution. In October 2024, Israel declared him persona non grata, accusing him of failing to “unequivocally condemn” an Iranian missile attack. He can no longer enter the country. Part of the explanation lies in the job itself. A secretary-general cannot impose settlements without the consent of the parties and the backing of the major powers, and the council is split among Russia, China and the West. Washington under President Trump has challenged multilateral institutions outright. Still, a 2021 International Crisis Group assessment found officials involved in Middle East mediation who viewed Guterres as reluctant to spend personal political capital on risky peace initiatives. Critics add that he can lean too heavily on what leaders tell him. During Ethiopia’s Tigray war he publicly relayed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s assurance that Eritrean troops had not entered Tigray outside a disputed border area. Mr. Abiy later acknowledged that they had. ![A vintage-style collage shows suited arms shaking hands above black combat boots standing on a red strip against a textured blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/26659af426400e2990c467f85d4fa262923d359d.webp) He has also been cautious with the blue helmets. In Haiti, as gangs tightened their grip on Port-au-Prince, Guterres ruled out a conventional peacekeeping mission, proposing instead a UN logistics office behind a Kenyan-led multinational force. Past missions had been “asked to impose peace in places where there was no peace to keep,” said Daniel Forti, a UN specialist at Crisis Group, and Guterres preferred “a much narrower interpretation” of what peacekeepers can do. Some of the caution may be personal. He took part in Cyprus reunification talks that collapsed in 2017, leaving him, by the account of those present, “visibly despondent.” In 2019 he flew to Libya to push the warring sides to negotiate; rebels mounted an offensive on Tripoli instead, and he left with “a heavy heart.” Guterres, Mr. Forti said, “got burned quite quickly and didn’t show an inclination to persevere with political processes over a long period of time.” Guterres himself calls world peace “a Sisyphean task,” and he has put more of his energy where he believes he can make a difference, above all on climate change. “We have a choice,” he told world leaders in 2022 — “collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.” Paloma Costa, a 34-year-old Brazilian climate activist who served on his inaugural Youth Advisory Group, said he had actively backed youth-led movements. On peace and war, the record his successor inherits is thinner.