Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a press conference at the Summit on Peace in Ukraine in Switzerland, 16 June 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / MICHAEL BUHOLZER
Ukraine plans to invite Russia to take part in a second peace summit that it hopes to hold by the end of the year, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Describing one of the summit’s goals as being to “reach a fair peace in Ukraine”, Bodnar nevertheless ruled out direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow. “We are not talking about a format here in which Ukraine and Russia sit across [from] each other and Ukraine listens to Russia's demands,” he said.
Bodnar explained that the talks would more likely be “in a format where third parties are also involved”, and any talks between Moscow and Kyiv would be carried out through an intermediary.
The Ukrainian ambassador added that Turkey would be “an important attendee” at the planned talks given its continued ties to both Ukraine and Russia.
Ukrainian newspaper Telegraf reported on Tuesday that the second Ukrainian peace summit, initially slated for next month, was unlikely to go ahead as planned, with an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office saying that the date for the next summit would be determined after “a number” of other conferences due to be held in October.
A summit of Ukraine’s key allies set to be held on Saturday at the US Ramstein air base in Germany has been postponed after US President Joe Biden was forced to cancel his attendance as Florida braces itself for Hurricane Milton making landfall, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
The first peace summit, which Moscow was not invited to attend, was held in Switzerland in June. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in September that Russian representatives should be invited to the second peace summit, adding that his country’s “victory plan” would be the starting point for and the foundation of any talks with Russia.
Zelensky’s offer was met with derision in Moscow, however, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova saying that Russia would not participate in “such events”, which she branded as “yet another manifestation of the fraud of the Anglo-Saxons and their Ukrainian puppets”.
