Kyiv seeks support at giant Swiss summit

This weekend, a remote Swiss resort above Lake Lucerne will be transformed as dozens of world leaders and thousands of soldiers and police descend on Bürgenstock.

Switzerland hopes that the Ukraine summit can create the first preliminary marks for the peace process, some 28 months after Russia invaded its neighbor.

It was Ukraine’s largest gathering since the full-scale invasion.

But with key countries like China staying away and Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing a new ultimatum – demanding that Ukraine surrender and calling it a peace proposal – expectations of significant progress are low. .

Russia has not been invited

For Ukraine, the fact that this meeting is taking place is positive.

Politicians in Kyiv praised every confirmed participant as a gesture of support. For them, the giant summit will demonstrate to Moscow that the world is on Ukraine’s side – and international law.

It comes at a difficult time.

There has been a new Russian offensive in the northeast, near Kharkov, and missiles are hitting homes and power plants across Ukraine with new intensity.

So size matters when reaching the top. But so is this substance.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko laid out the case from Kyiv: “It is important to establish a political and legal framework for future peace. To show that peace can only be achieved within Zelensky’s 10-point framework.” “That includes Ukraine’s territorial integrity and its sovereignty.”

He was referring to a peace formula proposed by the Ukrainian president at the end of 2022, which insisted on Russia returning all occupied land.

Ukraine now wants to rally as many countries as possible to support its formula, putting “psychological pressure” on Russia to accept such terms, if things get to that stage.

Right now, that seems unlikely.

This summit was first mooted when the situation on the battlefield looked more promising for Kiev: a crucial moment in trying to shape the terms of any future peace agreement. hybrid.

Since then the dynamic has changed.

“I think there is a growing belief among voters that this may not be a war that Ukraine can win,” argues Sam Greene of the Center for European Policy Analysis, or CEPA.

He pointed to a “significant portion” of US foreign policy establishment that believes Ukraine should “cut its losses”, as well as a rise in support in Europe for sympathetic right-wing parties than with Moscow.

“I think one thing this event is intended to do is to galvanize support behind Ukraine’s vision of an acceptable outcome,” Professor Greene said.

But voter turnout was less promising than Ukraine and Switzerland had hoped.

Joe Biden will not come in person, a decision that upset Mr. Zelensky. And efforts to persuade key countries from the “Global South” – not direct allies of Ukraine – to sign up, were only partially successful.

India, Brazil and China were all absent or sent low-level representatives to participate.

Russian officials have lined up to dismiss the event as insignificant. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, it is “worthless” and a “dead end”. However, Moscow is still pushing its allies to boycott the summit.

“It was a minus,” Oleksandr Merezhko admitted. “It seems that China has decided to provide unlimited support to its strategic partner Russia, not the peace process: the aggressor, not the peace.”

Before this event, Vladimir Putin tried to put another wrench in the works by drawing up his own conditions for a supposed peace: the one who had invaded Ukraine, without cause, now wanted Kyiv surrendered.

Among other things, Mr. Putin demanded that Ukraine hand over all four regions that Russia claimed to have annexed, including those still under Kiev’s control.

Kiev immediately rejected it as “ridiculous”.

The meeting on Lake Lucerne will focus on the three least controversial points in President Zelensky’s peace formula: issues of nuclear security, getting food on the global market and child kidnapping and imprisonment Ukrainian workers at home.

Going any further than that is unlikely to be effective.

Not now, when neither Ukraine nor Russia is ready to give up the fight.

“I think from Ukraine’s perspective, looking at what’s going on on the front lines, what they really need is not a commitment to peace, certainly not at any cost,” Sam Greene argued on Kyiv’s allies.

“They need a commitment to win the war.”