Rishi Sunak joins other world leaders to discuss Ukraine peace roadmap
Rishi Sunak warned Russia’s allies they are “on the wrong side of history” during a major international summit on Ukraine. Neil Connery reports
World leaders, including British prime minister Rishi Sunak, converged on a Swiss resort on Saturday to discuss a road to peace in Ukraine.
But hopes of a real breakthrough more than two years into the war were dampted by the absence of Russia from the peace talks.
Kyiv demands Russia leaves all Ukrainian territory while Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to order a ceasefire in Ukraine if Kyiv pulled troops from regions annexed by Moscow since 2022 and withdrew its bid for NATO membership.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “Here, there are representatives from Latin America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the Pacific, North America and religious leaders," Zelenskyy said. “Now, there is no Russia here. Why? Because if Russia was interested in peace, there would be no war."
“We must decide together what a just peace means for the world and how it can be achieved in a truly lasting way,” he said. “At the first peace summit, we must determine how to achieve a just peace, so that at the second, we can already settle on a real end to the war."
Mr Sunak condemned Vladimir Putin’s “escalating nuclear rhetoric” and said the Russian leader has no interest in “genuine peace” in Ukraine.
The prime minister, speaking at the peace summit, said aggression “cannot and will not prevail”.
He also criticised countries supplying arms and components for Vladimir Putin’s war effort, warning Russia’s allies they are “on the wrong side of history”.
The conference had three agenda items — seen as the least controversial bits of a 10-point peace “formula” laid out by Zelenskyy: Nuclear safety, including at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant; possible prisoner of war exchanges; and global food security. The war has disrupted shipments of food and fertilizer through the Black Sea.
Some countries such as India, Turkey and Saudi Arabia that have retained ties, at times lucrative, with Moscow — unlike Western powers that have sanctioned Russia over the war — were also present.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, told the conference that credible peace talks will need Russia’s participation and require “difficult compromise.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris, representing the United States while President Joe Biden attended a fundraiser in California, reiterated America’s full backing for Ukraine and announced $1.5 billion in new US assistance for energy infrastructure and humanitarian support.
China, which backs Russia, was among several countries that did not attend.Beijing has said any peace process would require the participation of Russia and Ukraine, and has floated its own ideas for peace.
Russian troops who control nearly a quarter of Ukraine have made territorial gains in recent months. When talk of the Swiss-hosted peace summit began last summer, Ukrainian forces had recently regained large tracts of territory, notably near the southern city of Kherson and the northern city of Kharkiv.
Zelenskyy's plan also called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory, the cessation of hostilities and the restoration of Ukraine’s original borders with Russia, including Russia's withdrawal from occupied Crimea. With Ukrainian mostly on the defensive these days, those appear to be increasingly distant hopes.
As world leaders discussed a pathway to peace in Switzerland, the war ground on in Ukraine, where shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded 15 others on Friday and overnight into Saturday, regional officials said.
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