INTERNATIONAL: A senior Russian diplomat said on Monday 25th April that there was no point in having a ceasefire in Ukraine at this stage because Kyiv was likely to use it as an opportunity to try to discredit Russia, after Kyiv denied reaching an agreement with Moscow over a humanitarian corridor.

"Ukraine is compromising our efforts to open these corridors, so we don't think a ceasefire is a good option right now," said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

Ukraine earlier denied reaching a deal with Russia on evacuating civilians from a steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol, and said the United Nations should be the "initiator and guarantor" of any such deal.

Polyanskiy said a ceasefire would only "be an opportunity for Ukrainian forces to regroup and stage more provocations."

He said Russia had not struck any residential areas in Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Odesa. Ukraine's southern air command on Saturday said that two missiles struck a military facility and two residential buildings in Odesa.

Russia had said earlier on Monday that it would open a humanitarian corridor for civilians to leave Mariupol's huge Azovstal steel plant, where they are holed up with Ukrainian fighters and are under Russian fire.

RUSSIAN DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, DMITRY POLYANSKIY, SAYING:

JOURNALIST ASKING: "President Putin has not engaged with the Secretary-General since this war started. Why has he now agreed to meet with the Secretary-General in Moscow? Is there an opening for a humanitarian ceasefire?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "By war, you mean our special military operation, as far as I understand. OK, so I don't remember that the Secretary-General asked for a meeting with President Putin before."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "I believe that he may have tried to speak with him on the phone."

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "Not to my knowledge, frankly, but I may be missing something."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "So why has he agreed to meet with him now? Is there an opening for a humanitarian ceasefire?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "The Secretary-General asked, the president accepted. It's very simple. You ask. We accept. You don't ask. We don't accept."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "Is it time for a ceasefire? If the Secretary-General asks for a ceasefire, will Russia comply?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "I think he asked for an Easter ceasefire and Easter is over right now."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "So you didn't comply with calls for an Easter truce. What if he asks for a ceasefire when he goes to Moscow? Will Russia comply and end this war?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "We are not supposed to comply with calls. People comply with orders, but not with the calls. So there was a call for a ceasefire and we opened humanitarian corridors, which are not being used by Ukraine. And Ukraine is also compromising our efforts to open these corridors, so we don't think a ceasefire is a good option right now, because the only advantage it will give is the possibility for Ukrainian forces to regroup and to stage more provocations like Bucha like I told you. So, frankly, it's not up to me to decide, but I don't see any reasons for this right now. Everyone who wants to get evacuated, for example, from Mariupol, has the opportunity to do so because we opened humanitarian corridors. Today, it was also opened. They claimed that there were some civilians in Azovstal, but they did not let them go. I don't see any logic in this."

JOURNALIST ASKING (OFF CAMERA): "Ambassador, Turkey has offered to serve as a guarantor. Is there any chance that Russia would accept that in terms of a ceasefire? Is there a role for the U.N.?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "I am not aware of the details."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "Is there a role for the U.N. in any ceasefire?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "There is a role for everybody who really can convince Ukraine to adopt the decisions that will be for the benefit of this country. But there is not a role for anybody who will try to use ceasefires and other things to strengthen the positions of the Ukrainian army and to stage more provocations directly or indirectly."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "And just to be clear, what you just said was you don't think it's a moment for a ceasefire?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "It's not up to me to decide. I explained the reasoning. So we saw initiatives on a ceasefire which resulted in two provocations in Bucha and Kramatorsk. So I don't see any reasons to believe in the sincerity of the other side anymore. But again, it's not up to me to decide, it's up to the ministry of defense and the presidential administration, of course."

JOURNALIST ASKING (OFF CAMERA): "Ambassador, can we get your reaction to some of the latest comments from the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken? He has said that Russia has failed in the aims of its war. Do you agree with that? And could you perhaps remind us, what are the aims?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "First of all, I'm not aware of any war that we waged. I am aware of the special military operation."

JOURNALIST ASKING "The war that has happened in Ukraine for the last two months since you invaded the country, ambassador."

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "It's not the war that we waged. It's the war that we're trying to stop that has been there for eight years."

JOURNALIST ASKING "Have you failed in your aims? And if so, could you please tell us because you seem to have completely changed your strategy, what are your aims?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "Our aims, first of all, to spare as many civilians as we can. We said from the very beginning, and since the nationalist battalions are using them for human shields, then of course we have to adapt our strategy and we will not act as Americans in Raqqa and Mosul, as I said, we do not want to erase these cities from the surface of the Earth."

JOURNALIST ASKING: "And you've adapted your strategy because you've failed so badly militarily?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "You mean we failed to kill as many people as Secretary Blinken would like us to kill?"

JOURNALIST ASKING: "Your attempt to take Kyiv seems to have failed miserably, so is that why you've adapted your strategy?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "I don't think we've failed, frankly. We conduct our military operation. It's not a war. It's a military operation. It has its own strategy. It has its own aims. It was never meant as a blitzkrieg. I don't know. It was something that Secretary Blinken maybe was imagining. It's really very difficult to comment on Secretary Blinken's remarks, because they are very contradictory."

JOURNALIST ASKING "On the possible use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, would Russia, if there is such an attack, would Russia agree to OPCW inspectors going in straight away to determine how an attack happened and who was responsible?"

DMITRY POLYANSKIY: "Frankly, if it depended on me, I don't have any credibility in the OPCW after what happened in Syria and all these things. But in any case, we will document it. And I told you about the samples. We need to see what the substance that was used there was. And we will, of course, share it with OPCW's secretariat. But the OPCW secretariat proved to be absolutely pro-Western and absolutely anti-Russia and anti-Syria. So I don't think it would be constructive engagement in any case. But I hope that there will be no chemical provocations. The more we make it vocal, the less chances there are to commit these provocations."

"If you saw the details, you would see that the rockets that hit the residential buildings in Odesa were not launched by Russia. It was confirmed. They were from a Ukrainian air defense because Russia was striking another military target with high precision weapons. So the Ukrainians fired and they missed the target, which happens, unfortunately, and it resulted in the military infrastructure... It's not, to my knowledge, that we are striking something else in Odesa."