Pakistan, June 24 -- As civilians continue to pay the high cost of war, Pakistan has called for resumption of diplomatic efforts towards an "immediate and complete" cessation of hostilities between Ukraine and Russia in a bid to end this four-year-old conflict. "We firmly believe that for sustainable peace to return to the region, primacy must be given to dialogue and diplomacy, eschewing the quest for military ascendency," Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council on Monday.

Ukraine requested the 15-member Council's meeting to discuss what Kyiv called a massive wave of Russian missile and drone strikes against it. Five Council members - Denmark, France, Greec...