It is unrealistic to expect the ongoing emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly on the Ukraine crisis to stop the fighting in that country.

Yet, with some 100 countries speaking their minds and a vote on a draft resolution pending on Wednesday, there will hopefully be a louder voice calling for the cessation of hostilities, and a stronger international synergy for alleviating and terminating the humanitarian crisis the war is causing.

With the first round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine ending up fruitless, the fighting has intensified and a frustrated Russia has put its nuclear forces on high alert, so countries around the world share a moral responsibility to be, as Resolution 377A (V) is named, "uniting for peace".

Pushing Russia to the brink of the unthinkable does not serve that purpose.

The ongoing war in Ukraine is taking a heavy toll on Russian and Ukrainian lives, thousands of soldiers and hundreds of innocent civilians have reportedly been killed, and many more wounded in the past few days. Half a million Ukrainian civilians, mostly women and children, have had to flee their homeland and seek shelter in neighboring countries.

The international community needs to rally to stop the violence. "Humanitarian law and international humanitarian law must be respected. And diplomacy and dialogue must prevail," as UN General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid urged.

Not only from the perspective of humanitarian concerns, but from that of pragmatic cost-benefit calculations as well, the situation in Ukraine is an all-lose scenario. The longer it lasts, the more the peoples of Ukraine and Russia will suffer. Yes, the Russian people will suffer too, perhaps dearly, thanks to the sanctions the United States, the European Union and their allies are imposing on Russia.

Despite the difficulty of the negotiations, negotiators from both sides should do their utmost to deal with each side's pragmatic demands, so that a cease-fire can take effect as soon as possible.

That, as Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said, means common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. The security of one country should not be at the expense of the security of other countries, and regional security should not be guaranteed by strengthening or even expanding military blocs.

The concerns of both sides need to be taken into account and a practical, if workaround, solution found that can create space for a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism to be agreed on through dialogue and negotiation.

Beyond the immediate end to the current hostilities and the amelioration of the humanitarian crisis, what is also important is that there is a common takeaway from what is happening in Ukraine, which is that war is never a solution to today's problems.