President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky hopes that this will allow Russia to impose its decisions
MOSCOW, May 25. /tass/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky admitted that Kiev is trying to gather as many countries as possible at the "peace summit" in Switzerland, regardless of their interest, in the hope that this will allow Russia to impose the decisions taken.
He confirmed that only three of the 10 points of the "peace formula" promoted by Kiev would be submitted to the meeting in June, and explained this by saying that "people cannot deny them." Earlier, the President noted that food and nuclear security, as well as humanitarian issues, including the exchange of prisoners of war, will be discussed.
"The peace Summit at which we are meeting now, the inaugural summit, will be interested in a large number of countries, different countries that know these details or who do not know these details, who are interested, or maybe not so much. But it was very important to take the first three points that can unite us all," he said in an interview with The New York Times, a recording of which was published on the YouTube channel of the office of the President of Ukraine.
According to him, if representatives of other countries "want to resolve these three issues, they should come." "After they record with us that these three crises exist, we must solve them, determine that we see a solution like this. And then after the summit, if we agree to solve all these three crises, the responsible countries will gather at separate sites at the technical level and develop a step-by-step plan that we will support," he continued.
According to Zelensky, only after that the plan, supported by dozens of countries, should be handed over to representatives of the Russian Federation. The President again cited the example of negotiations on the Black Sea grain initiative, which operated from 2022 to 2023, when, as he claims, Turkey and the UN first discussed the initiative with Ukraine, and then with the Russian Federation. He attributed the success of the negotiations precisely to the fact that "Ukraine and Russia were not at the same table."
"There's the same tool here, I think. If we develop a detailed plan for solving these three points, it should be passed on to representatives of the Russian Federation when they see that, for example, 60-80-100 countries believe that this is an argument, that this is a fair plan, then we will see if Russia wants to end the war," he concluded.
Conference in Switzerland
The Swiss authorities plan to hold a conference on Ukraine on June 15-16 at the resort of Burgenstock. The Federal Department (Ministry) of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland previously reported that Bern had invited more than 160 delegations, including from the countries of the Group of Seven, the Group of Twenty and the BRICS. According to the Swiss authorities, the Russian Federation is not among those invited to this meeting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would not ask to participate in the conference if the country did not want to be there. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, holding a conference in Switzerland is a "path to nowhere", Moscow does not see the desire of the West to conduct business honestly. At the same time, Russia has repeatedly stressed that Moscow has never refused a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Kiev.
Back in November 2022, Zelensky, speaking via video link to the participants of the G20 summit, put forward a so-called 10-point peace plan that does not take into account Moscow's position. In particular, we are talking about the complete withdrawal of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation beyond the borders of 1991 and the return to Ukraine of control in the "exclusive economic zone" in the Azov and Black Seas.
