The United Nations General Assembly has opened an extraordinary emergency session with pleas for peace in Ukraine, starting a day of frenzied diplomacy at the UN.
Assembly President Abdulla Shahid asked envoys from the UN's 193 member countries to stand for a moment of silence at the start of the session, the assembly's first emergency meeting in decades.Â
Shahid repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire, maximum restraint by all parties and "a full return to diplomacy and dialogue".
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council was due to meet later on Monday to discuss the spiralling humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
With Russian and Ukrainian officials holding talks on the Belarus border, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the assembly he hoped those discussions could lead to a halt in the fighting.
"The guns are talking now but the path of dialogue must always remain open," he said.
"We need peace now."