Switzerland is hosting a summit on Saturday and Sunday designed as a “first step” to find the path to peace in Ukraine, with dozens of senior leaders, but without Russia and presumably China.
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“We dare to talk about peace,” said Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, presenting the program of the meeting to the media on Monday.
The “High Level Conference on Peace in Ukraine”, its official name, will take place in the wake of the G7 meeting, from Thursday to Saturday, in southern Italy, with the participation of the Ukrainian president in both meetings. Volodymyr Zelensky.
G7 leaders hope to reach an agreement on the use of interest from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, targeted since February 2022 by a deadly Russian offensive.
Mr. Zelensky will then join representatives of more than 90 states and organizations in Switzerland, including French President Emmanuel Macron, American Vice-President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“The conference is a first step,” stressed Mr. Cassis, but “there will be no peace process without Russia. The question is not if Russia will be on board but when.
Bern did not invite Russia, the latter having indicated that it was not interested, because it considers that Switzerland has lost its neutrality by aligning itself with European sanctions.
The Kremlin has repeatedly said it will not participate in any negotiations if kyiv does not accept Russia’s annexation of the approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory it currently occupies.
“Cyberattacks”
“We would like to develop (…) a road map on how the parties can come together as part of a future peace process,” said Swiss President Viola Amherd, whose country is advocating for the implementation in place of “confidence building measures”.
Among the members of the Brics group (five emerging countries) of which Russia is a part, only India has publicly confirmed its participation. China and Brazil find it difficult to be there without Moscow and the participation of South Africa remains uncertain.
The conference comes as Russian forces made their biggest territorial gains in 18 months in Ukraine, with the major ground assault on the Kharkiv region they launched on May 10, seizing several villages border crossings and forcing thousands of people to flee.
The Ukrainian army, lacking ammunition and men, is struggling, particularly due to the delay in the delivery of Western military aid.
In Switzerland, the authorities are on their guard against the possibility of cyberattacks during the summit, while “their number has increased massively in recent weeks,” according to Mr. Cassis.
Prisoners and nuclear power
The objective of the summit, requested by kyiv, is to “inspire a future peace process”, but the outcome of the meeting remains uncertain. “It is very important to avoid having exaggerated expectations,” warned a German government Source.
Ukraine hopes to gain broad international support by laying out the conditions it believes are necessary to end the war.
The conference draws in particular on the Ukrainian president’s ten-point peace plan, with the aim of establishing the means to achieve “a just and lasting peace”.
“We will hold in-depth discussions on essential themes for Ukraine and the world: situation of prisoners of war, nuclear threat and food security,” said Mr. Cassis.
According to the spokesperson for the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nicolas Bideau, it is not his compatriots who will “lead” the thematic discussions, but “countries of the Global South” or those with “skills” in the matter.
These themes “are not the most delicate, but they are nevertheless important,” the director of the Swisspeace research institute, Laurent Goetschel, told AFP.
“If it proves possible to generate a follow-up, addressing these themes jointly with Russian participants could facilitate the establishment of a basis of trust for future peace negotiations,” he added.
