Zelensky wants to see Russia at an upcoming peace summit

Photo: Laurent Cipriani Associated Press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Switzerland on Monday

Mykola Zavgorodniy – Agence France-Presse to kyiv

Published yesterday at 10:50 a.m. Updated yesterday at 6:06 p.m.

• Europe

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opened the door to peace talks with Russia for the first time on Monday, saying he was in favor of Moscow's presence at a future peace summit.

A first summit on peace in Ukraine was organized in mid-June in Switzerland, with several dozen countries represented, but Russia was not invited and China, ally of Moscow and diplomatic heavyweight, had decided not to participate.

Since then, Volodymyr Zelensky has said he wants to present in November a “plan” for “a just peace”, after almost two and a half years of a war which has left hundreds of thousands of victims on the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

“I have set a goal that by November we will have a fully prepared plan” to be able to organize the summit, he said Monday during a conference of press in Kiev.

But for the first time, he also assured that he wanted Moscow's presence: “I think that Russian representatives should participate in this second summit”, he announced.

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The Ukrainian president did not mention the cessation of hostilities, but the establishment of “a plan” on three subjects: the energy security of Ukraine, whose infrastructure has been ravaged by Russian bombings, the free navigation in the Black Sea, a key subject for Ukrainian exports, and prisoner exchanges.

Russia still occupies almost 20% of Ukrainian territory and the prospects of a ceasefire, or even lasting peace between Kiev and Moscow, remain minimal at this stage.

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This is the first time, however, that Volodymyr Zelensky has issued the the idea of ​​discussions with Russia without prior Russian withdrawal from its territory.

In the past, he had also sworn not to want to discuss with Moscow as long as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is said to be in power and even signed a decree making negotiations with Moscow illegal.

Irreconcilable positions

The positions between kyiv and Moscow, however, seem irreconcilable to this day.

Ukraine, led by Volodymyr Zelensky, regularly claims to want to regain its sovereignty over all the territories occupied by its Russian neighbor, including the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

kyiv has proposed a 10-point peace plan, supported by the West, involving the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, or nearly 700,000 soldiers, according to figures presented by Vladimir Putin. A proposal dismissed by Moscow.

The strong man of the Kremlin, who ordered the attack of his army against Ukraine in February 2022, for his part has repeatedly repeated his “conditions”: the abandonment of the four regions of which Moscow claims the annexation in more Crimea, and the assurance that kyiv renounces joining NATO.

These demands were brushed aside by kyiv and its Western supporters.

The West repeats that it was up to Ukrainian officials to decide when they would like to discuss with Russia and under what conditions, and Volodymyr Zelensky assured Monday “not to think that we pushes us” to negotiate.

The possibility of negotiations is “something that has been discussed with them,” the State Department spokesperson said Monday, Matthew Miller, while recalling that it was up to Ukraine to decide.

“If they want to invite Russia to the summit, we will support them,” he added, but noted that to date, Russia has shown no signs of wanting a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

The outcome of the presidential election in the United States, Ukraine's main ally, could play an important role in the continuation of the conflict.

Republican Donald Trump , who has praised Vladimir Putin's policies in the past, has promised to end the war within weeks if elected in early November, leading some to fear he could cut U.S. aid.< /p>

In the first weeks of the Russian invasion in 2022, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Belarus, then in Turkey, to try to reach a peace agreement.

These attempts, however, failed, Russia has since assured that it was the West who had caused the discussions to fail.

In February 2023, China, an ally of Russia, presented its own peace plan for Ukraine, without Moscow and kyiv seizing it to resume discussions.

The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, the Kremlin's privileged interlocutor in the European Union, was in Kiev at the beginning of July, then Moscow, in the hope of moving the lines, but he was drawn into response the wrath of his European counterparts for his trip, especially since he called on kyiv for a ceasefire.