Russia declared on Monday that the conference on the war in Ukraine, which was held in Switzerland, had yielded very little and demonstrated the pointlessness of having negotiations without Moscow.
The Kremlin was making comments following a summit over the weekend in which significant non-aligned states were not persuaded to join the final declaration made by Western powers and their allies denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The outcomes of the summit, to which Russia was not invited, were described as “nearly zero” by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. During a daily press briefing, Peskov was questioned about whether Russia’s relations with nations like Serbia, Turkey, and Hungary will suffer as a result of their participation in the summit and signing of the statement.
“No, it won’t spoil them. We will, of course, take into account the position that these countries have taken, this is important to us and we will continue to explain our reasoning to them,” Peskov said.
“Many of them, and this was a common point of view on this event, confirmed their understanding of the absence of prospects for any serious, substantive discussions without the presence of our country…If we talk about the overall effectiveness of this meeting, it is close to zero.”
President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia was willing to end the war, but he set out conditions for Ukraine – renouncing its NATO ambitions and withdrawing troops from four regions claimed by Russia – that Kyiv rejected as tantamount to capitulation.
“Of course we… understand perfectly that a time will come when it will be necessary to talk to Russia,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “But our position is very clear: We will not allow Russia to speak in the language of ultimatums like it is speaking now.”
Peskov said that what he called Putin’s peace initiative remained on the agenda, and reaffirmed Moscow’s position that it was open to dialogue.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russian foreign intelligence, was cited by the state news agency TASS on Monday as stating that if Putin’s demands were not met, new and stricter terms will take their place.
Russia now holds about a fifth of Ukraine and has made steady progress on multiple fronts since February, well into the third year of the conflict.
Over 90 nations participated in the two-day negotiations held in Switzerland. However, China’s choice to abstain virtually guaranteed that Ukraine’s goal of convincing significant nations in the “global South” to participate in isolating Russia would not be fulfilled at the summit.
The final statement from the meeting demanded the restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia and its ports on the Azov Sea.
However, in keeping with the conference’s more modestly stated objectives, it avoided discussing more difficult topics, such as how a post-war settlement for Ukraine might be structured, whether or not Ukraine might join NATO, and the logistics of army withdrawals from both sides.
(Source:Reuters)
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