No one is under the illusion that the summit on peace in Ukraine which opened at Buergenstock, a luxury resort overlooking Lake Lucerne, in Switzerland, can put an end to a war that has been raging for over two years, soaking the country in blood once again. European soil, after the slaughterhouse of the wars that accompanied the collapse of Yugoslavia. But perhaps, in the words of the President of Finland Alexander Stubb, to achieve peace you have to start somewhere. “We will not be able to negotiate peace in Ukraine here at Buergenstock, but we want to inspire a process that leads to a just and lasting peace”, he summarized the President of the Swiss Confederation Viola Amherd in the resort surrounded by pastures populated by Alpine browns and flown over by black kites.
For the Swiss Foreign Minister, Ignazio Cassis, the summit “is an important moment, because it is the largest conference on peace since the conflict broke out in Ukraine. It means giving hope to the Ukrainians and the whole planet that this war too” it can end. Ukraine, which specifically asked Switzerland to organize this summit, makes full use of the opportunity, demonstrating once again that it is particularly skilled in the war of words, as well as that fought with weapons. President Volodymyr Zelensky he stressed that “every nation is equally important to us and everything that is decided here will be part of the peace process that is necessary. I believe we will make history here at the summit“.
Russia not invited
At the summit, which is held in a historically neutral country like Switzerland, 92 states are present, 57 of which are represented at the level of heads of state and government, 30 at ministerial level, while 5 have sent only diplomats. The latter are all countries of a certain importance: Brazil, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Indonesia. Russia was not even invited, according to the Swiss press because Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear to his Swiss colleague Cassis that Moscow would not have accepted the invitation in any case, so Bern would have decided not to invite the Russians so as not to irritate them further .
China, without whose help the Russian military-industrial apparatus would have greater difficulty fueling the war effort in Ukraine, is not present. The so-called Global South reacted quite coldly to the peace conference in Switzerland: the middle powers that also intend to maintain good relations with Moscow, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, all relevant countries if the West wants to isolate the nascent Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis, have chosen to participate, but at a low level. And those who participated at the highest level, such as the President of Kenya William Ruto, spoke clearly: Russia, he said, “must be at the table” and “the appropriation of Russian assets” decided by the G7 is “illegal” and “unacceptable”.
Despite the absences, however, for once we should start talking about peace, about how to end a war that has been going on for over two years, with very high human and economic costs. The Kremlin’s reaction to the summit on the shores of Lake Lucerne was frosty. “Russia has nothing to convey to the participants of the Swiss summit on Ukraine and hopes that next time the conflict will be discussed in a more constructive event,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Tass agency.
However, Switzerland’s initiative must have caused some annoyance in Moscow, if on Friday President Vladimir Putin dictated peace conditions that would imply a total surrender of Ukraine, which would leave Moscow with four regions that the Russian army does not fully control . According to US Vice President Kamala Harris, Moscow does not want to negotiate with Kiev, but simply wants the “surrender” of the Ukrainians. The head of the Ukrainian Presidency Office, Andriy Yermak, explains what the Swiss summit means for Kiev: once a “plan” for peace in Ukraine is prepared with the contribution of the international community, he says, Kiev will try to present it to Russia in a “second summit, at the leaders’ level”. But Kiev, he clarifies, will not accept “any compromise on independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Territorial integrity which is one of the cruxes of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, given that, strictly speaking, it also includes Crimea, occupied by Putin in 2014, with a weak reaction from the West.
It is therefore an attempt to define the ground for the negotiations that should take place in the future. As Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko documented in April in Foreign Affairs, in the spring of 2022 Russia and Ukraine were very close to concluding an agreement that would have ended the war, both demonstrating their willingness to make concessions. They failed for a variety of reasons, not least the West’s unwillingness to provide Kiev with binding security guarantees that would have implied the risk of a direct confrontation with Russia in the future. One of the main issues, which Putin also repeated on Friday, is Ukraine’s potential membership of NATO, which Moscow sees as a direct threat. Kiev, on the contrary, considers it the only real guarantee of security.
Now Zelensky focuses on “just peace”, in an attempt to delimit the playing field, with the support of a substantial number of countries. “We managed to bring back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop the war and establish a just peace. This idea will definitely work, because the world has power,” he said. In Ukraine, Yermak recalled, “unfortunately the war continues, our soldiers continue to fight. Two years is enough time to demonstrate that Ukraine is capable not only of defending itself, but of winning and achieving a just peace.” The summit is being held in Switzerland, but Ukraine is very interested in its success: the President of the European Council Charles Michel, upon arriving, thanked both the President of the Confederation, Viola Amherd, the hostess, and the Ukrainian President Zelensky.
The final statement
Today we will cover several topics relating to the conflict in Ukraine, including humanitarian issues, such as prisoner exchanges and deported Ukrainian children, nuclear threats made by Russia and the implications of the war for food security. The peace summit in Ukraine is expected to end with a final declaration: Switzerland leads and coordinates the work on the text. The declaration should be focused, explained Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, “on three fundamental points. I believe that we could start from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to make it a free zone. Then there is the question of wheat, which is also of great importance, because African countries also pay the price. And there is the question of hostages, of prisoners.” The President of the European Council Charles Michel underlined that the document will also focus on respecting the key principles of the United Nations Charter.
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