Russia has said Ukraine would have to convince it to attend a “peace summit” that could be held later this year after Kyiv said Moscow should take part in the talks having been excluded from a first such gathering last month.
About 90 countries were represented at the June peace summit in Switzerland, but China stayed away because Russia was not invited and several other influential states of the so-called global south also declined to attend or did not sign the final communique, apparently to safeguard their relations with Moscow.
The June summit focused on three elements of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s 10-point “peace formula” – food and energy security and the exchange of prisoners – and he said on Monday that international follow-up meetings on those issues would take place in the coming months.
“After that, if it all works, a plan for implementing all the points [of the peace formula] will be ready. I would set a goal that in November we will have a fully ready plan. And then a summit as well, for sure ... And I believe that representatives of Russia should be at the second summit,” he said.
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However, Russian president Vladimir Putin and several of his top officials have said their country will only discuss peace if Kyiv accepts the Kremlin’s occupation of five Ukrainian regions and abandons its Nato membership hopes forever. They have also dismissed Mr Zelenskiy’s peace formula – which calls on Russia to withdraw all troops, pay reparations and face war crimes justice – as an unacceptable “ultimatum”.
“The first peace summit was not a peace summit at all. So perhaps it is necessary to first understand what he means,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday when asked about Mr Zelenskiy’s comments.
Senior Russian foreign ministry official Alexey Polishchuk accused Ukraine of using “pseudo-peaceful rhetoric” to “earn the sympathy of countries of the global south and lure them over to the western, anti-Russian side”.
“Had the authorities in Kyiv indeed been ready to resolve the crisis through political-diplomatic means then first of all they would have cancelled the decree banning themselves from holding talks with the Russian leadership and agreed to a focused discussion of initiatives other than the ... Zelenskiy formula,” he added.
“As long as the ban remains in force and work on the formula continues all Kyiv’s claims about aspiring for peace are just empty words and smoke and mirrors. We are certain that the countries of the global majority understand this.”
Eight months after Mr Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Mr Zelenskiy signed a decree banning any talks with him personally, while leaving open the option of negotiations with another Russian leader and other officials.
