World leaders join major Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland – but not Russia or China

CNN
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More than 100 countries and organizations have gathered in Switzerland for a major conference aimed at charting a path to peace between Ukraine and Russia, but no delegation from Moscow will be present.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky intends to use the meeting, which is being held in a seaside resort near Lucerne, to drum up support for the 10-point peace plan he first presented at the end of 2022.

Addressing the conference on Saturday, Zelensky said the proposal to end the war would be submitted to Russia once it was accepted by the other nations present and that there would then be a second summit of peace, where “we can establish the true end of the war”. war.”

“The peace formula is inclusive, and we are happy to hear and work on all proposals, all ideas on what is really needed for peace and what is important to you, dear friends,” said Zelensky.

“I urge you to be as active as possible and I am proud that all regions of the world, all continents are now represented at the peace summit,” he added.

Most Western governments have sent representatives at a high level. US Vice President Kamala Harris attended and announced that Washington would provide Kiev with more than $1.5 billion in aid to help the country rebuild its dilapidated infrastructure and respond to humanitarian needs arising from the conflict, according to a statement from the White House on Saturday. .

“This war remains a total failure for Putin. I am here in Switzerland to stand with Ukraine and world leaders for a just and lasting peace,” Harris said.

Heads of state and government from several European states, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, are also joining the event, as is Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

However, China will not participate. He said any such meeting would require the participation of Russia and Ukraine.

Zelensky’s plan includes demands for a cessation of hostilities, the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian soil and the restoration of Ukraine’s pre-war borders. and Russia.

It also calls for the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes.

“Ukraine never wanted this war, it is a criminal and absolutely unprovoked aggression by Russia. And the only one who wanted it was Putin,” Zelensky said.

Russia has shown little interest in agreeing to these terms and has shown no signs of compromise on territorial issues.

On Friday, the day before the summit kicked off, Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed the Kremlin’s peace plan, which Ukraine will likely never accept.

The proposal calls for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from four southern and eastern regions of Ukrainian territory that Moscow has said it wants to annex in violation of international law and demands that kyiv abandon its NATO candidacy.

Although Russian forces have made modest progress in two regions – Donetsk and Luhansk – in recent months, they are far from occupying all four regions, including Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Putin said later in the day that nearly 700,000 Russian troops are fighting in Ukraine, an increase from the 617,000 he reported at an end-of-year news conference in 2023.

Zelensky responded in an interview on Italian television that “the fact that Putin says to give them part of our territories, occupied and unoccupied, speaks of several regions of our country, and he will stop (there) and he will not There will be no frozen conflict. .”

“The messages are the same as Hitler’s,” Zelensky said

“Putin understands that there will be a summit for peace. Most of the world is on Ukraine’s side, on the side of life. And on the eve of the summit, amid the sirens of air raids, deaths and missile attacks, he seems to be talking about some kind of ultimatum,” Zelensky added.