Key regional powers including Brazil, India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia have failed to sign up to a joint communique issued at the end of a Ukraine peace conference in which more than 80 countries and international organisations endorsed its territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s invasion, Ednews informs.
Speaking at the end of the two-day summit in Switzerland, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, welcomed the “first steps toward peace” but acknowledged that not all attenders had come onboard. “Unfortunately there are people who are still balancing,” he said, adding that Russia was trying to divide the world.
He said the final communique remained “open for accession by everyone who respects the UN charter”.
About 100 countries took part in the conference in the resort of Bürgenstock, but Russia was not invited and China snubbed the event. Amid modest expectations ahead of the event, western diplomats argued that its significance lay partly in its participants. Attenders were mostly from Europe, the US and other western allies, but included countries from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Zelenskiy said parties had agreed to work in special groups on “action plans for peace”, which he said would open the way to a second peace summit.
The final text was signed by more than 80 countries and international organisations, including the three main EU institutions and 27 EU member states. It said the UN charter, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states “can and will serve as a basis in achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
In a boost for Kyiv, Turkey, which maintains close trading links with Russia and has sought to be a peacemaker, signed the document. It was also signed by Argentina, Iraq, Qatar and Rwanda.
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European Council President Charles Michel on Sunday hailed last week as a "political success" for Ukraine, Ednews informs.
In a tweet, Michel pointed to key developments: the G7's decision to utilize $50 billion of Russian assets for a loan to Ukraine, global support for the Charter of the United Nations at a peace conference in Switzerland, and the European Council's approval to proceed with the first Intergovernmental Conference.
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Western powers and countries from the rest of the world will use the second day of a major summit in Switzerland today to pursue a consensus on condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and underscoring concerns about the war’s human cost, Ednews reports citing The Guardian.
A draft of the final summit declaration, seen by Reuters, refers to Russia’s invasion as a “war” – a label Moscow rejects – and calls for Ukraine’s control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and its Azov seaports to be restored.
Moscow casts what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine as part of a broader struggle with the west, which it says wants to bring Russia to its knees. Kyiv and the west say Russia is waging an illegal war of conquest.
World leaders including US vice-president Kamala Harris, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron gathered this weekend at a mountaintop resort in a bid to bolster international support for ending the war.
Many western leaders voiced forceful condemnation of the invasion, invoking the UN Charter in defence of Ukrainian territorial integrity, and rejecting Russian president Vladimir Putin’s demands for parts of Ukraine as a condition for peace.
“One thing is clear in this conflict: there is an aggressor, which is Putin, and there is a victim, which is the Ukrainian people,” Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said.
Here’s a summary of the rest of the day’s events:
Shortly before leaving for the summit yesterday, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz said that G7 leaders did not discuss Vladimir Putin’s proposals for peace in Ukraine since everyone knew they were not serious. Scholz said the Russian president’s proposals – for Ukraine to abandon four provinces Russia claims, stop fighting and drop its ambition of Nato membership – were aimed only at distracting from the conference. The Kremlin said on Saturday that the west had reacted unconstructively to Putin’s proposals for a new security architecture and peace talks with Ukraine.
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who attended the summit in place of the US president, Joe Biden, announced more than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) in aid for Ukraine. The $1.5bn includes $500m (£395m) in new funding for energy assistance and the redirecting of $324m (£256m) in previously announced funds toward emergency energy infrastructure repair and other needs in Ukraine, the vice-president’s office said. She also announced more than $379m (£300m) in humanitarian assistance from the state department and the US agency for international development to help refugees and other people affected by the war.
Prisoners at a pre-trial detention centre in Russia’s southern region of Rostov took two employees hostage, the Federal Penitentiary Service said on Sunday. The five men who took hostages claim they are supporters of Islamic State, the Baza Telegram channel, which has sources in Russian law enforcement, reported on Sunday, according to Reuters.
Swedish fighter jets intercepted a Russian military aircraft after it briefly violated Sweden’s airspace on Friday east of the Baltic island of Gotland, the Nordic country’s armed forces said. Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, called the airspace violation “unacceptable” and said officials from the Russian embassy in Stockholm would be summoned to his ministry over the incident.
Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Ukraine-sceptic prime minister Robert Fico, was sworn in as Slovakia’s new president.
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