More than 100 countries and organizations gathered for a conference in Switzerland this Saturday (15), dedicated to defining a path to peace between Ukraine and Russia. United States President Joe Biden sent vice-president Kamala Harris to represent him.
At the event, Harris announced that Washington will provide Kiev with an aid package worth more than $1.5 billion to help the country rebuild its damaged infrastructure and respond to humanitarian needs arising from the conflict, according to a statement from the White House this Saturday (15).
“This war remains a total failure for Putin. I am here in Switzerland to stand with Ukraine and leaders around the world in support of a just and lasting peace,” said Harris.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky intends to use the meeting, which takes place at a resort near Lucerne, to drum up support for the 10-point peace plan he first outlined in late 2022.
Zelensky told the conference that the proposal to end the war would be submitted to Russia as soon as it was accepted by the other nations present and that then there would be a second peace summit, where “we could fix the true end of the war.”
“The peace formula is inclusive, and we are happy to listen and work on all the proposals, all the ideas of what is really needed for peace and what is important to you, dear friends,” said the Ukrainian president.
“I ask you to be as active as possible and I am proud that all parts of the world, all continents, are now represented at the peace summit,” he added.
Most Western governments sent high-level representatives.
Heads of state and government from several European countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, are also participating, as is Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
However, China will not attend. The Asian country rejected any meeting that does not have the presence 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 with Russia.
It also calls for the creation of a special court 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 that was Putin,” said Zelensky.
Russia has shown little interest in agreeing to these terms and has shown no sign of compromise when it comes to territorial issues.
On Friday (14), one day before the start of the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reaffirmed the Kremlin’s own peace plan, which Ukraine is unlikely to agree to.
The Russian proposal calls for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from four southern and eastern regions of Ukrainian territory that Moscow has said it would annex and demands that Kiev give up its bid to join NATO..
While Russian forces have made gains in two of the regions – Donetsk and Luhansk – in recent months, they are far from occupying all four, which include Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Putin said later that day that nearly 700,000 Russian troops are fighting in Ukraine, an increase from the 617,000 he reported during a year-end press conference in 2023.
Zelensky responded in an interview with Italian television that “the fact that Putin says to give up part of our territories, occupied and unoccupied, talks about several regions of our country, and he will stop (there), and there will be no frozen conflict.”
“The messages are the same as Hitler’s,” said Zelensky
“Putin understands that there will be a peace summit. That most of the world is on the side of Ukraine, on the side of life. And on the eve of the summit, amid air raid sirens, people being killed and missile attacks, he seems to be talking about some kind of ultimatum,” the Ukrainian president added.
Source: CNN Brasil
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