Michael Buholzer/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Switzerland on Friday ahead of a peace summit due to be held over the weekend.
CNN
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Around 100 countries and organisations will attend a major conference in Switzerland aimed at setting a course for peace between Ukraine and Russia, but no delegation from Moscow will attend.
The meeting, to be held in a resort near Lucerne, is due to be attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is hoping to rally support for a 10-point peace plan he first outlined in late 2022.
Most Western governments are sending delegations, some at senior levels, and US Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend and announce a package of more than $1.5 billion to help rebuild Kiev’s devastated infrastructure and address humanitarian needs caused by the conflict, according to a White House statement released Saturday.
Also attending will be leaders and government officials from European countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
But China will not attend, and has said such a meeting would need to be attended by both Russia and Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s plan includes demands such as an cessation of hostilities, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory and restoration of pre-war borders with Russia.
They also call for the creation of a special court to prosecute Russian war crimes.
Russia has shown little interest in agreeing to these terms and has shown no signs of compromising on the territorial issue.
On Friday, the day before the summit began, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the Kremlin’s own peace plan, which Ukraine is unlikely to agree to.
The proposal calls for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from four southern and eastern regions of Ukrainian territory that Moscow says it is annexing in violation of international law, and demands that Kiev abandon its attempts to join NATO.
Russian forces have made some advances in recent months in two regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, but are far from occupying all four regions, which also include Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Putin said later in the day that about 700,000 Russian troops were fighting in Ukraine, up from the 617,000 he reported at his 2023 end-of-year press conference.
“The fact that Putin is saying he will give up part of the territory to Russia, occupied or not, he is talking about several regions of our country, he will stop there and the conflict will not be frozen,” Zelensky said in an interview with Italian television.
“The message is the same as Hitler’s message,” Zelenskiy said.
“Putin understands that there is a peace summit, and most of the world is on Ukraine’s side, on the side of life, and on the eve of the summit, with air raid sirens going off, people being killed, missile attacks, it seems like he is talking about some kind of ultimatum,” Zelensky added.
