Oh, that's not good...I mean for Mr Z.
Ukraine’s Global Diplomatic Flurry Fails to Outflank Russia
As many world leaders skip Zelensky’s peace summit, some countries press Kyiv to seek direct talks with Kremlin
By Laurence Norman and Drew Hinshaw, WSJ
June 14, 2024
Far from its battlefield woes, Ukraine is struggling to keep the world rallied behind its vision for ending the war with Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has flown to the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Qatar and Italy over the past two weeks in a campaign to build pressure for Russia to curtail fighting on his terms. On Saturday, Zelensky joins world leaders on a Swiss mountaintop resort for a peace summit that Kyiv has spent a year orchestrating.
That diplomatic push, rather than patching up cracks in global sympathy for Ukraine, has exposed them. At a Group of Seven summit in Italy this week, leaders of large advanced democracies offered money and rhetoric for Ukraine but only a weak facsimile of the security guarantees that Zelensky sought. The Ukrainian president, who invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the Swiss conference, has since publicly feuded with China, which he says has discouraged other nations from attending.
Dozens of leaders are expected to attend the weekend summit, but some big names will be absent. PHOTO: URS FLUEELER/PRESS POOL
When Zelensky begins his summit in Switzerland, he will face a crowd thinner than he had hoped for, with many world leaders—including President Biden—skipping the long-planned event. The host country’s largest political party is opposed to the gathering itself. Even some among those attending are pushing Ukraine to loosen its conditions and seek direct talks with the Kremlin.
As a result, the U.S. and its European allies aren’t confident that the summit in the Alpine town of Bürgenstock will prompt Russia to wind back its war aims. Some worry the conference could weaken Ukraine, just as its troops are struggling to reverse Russia’s recent incremental battlefield gains.
On the eve of the conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin made what appeared to be a fresh gambit to split Ukraine off from neutral powers. He said he is prepared to come to the negotiating table if Kyiv agrees to a neutral status and abandons plans to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
He also demanded that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the four Ukrainian regions that Russia claims as part of its territory, which would include several major cities controlled by Ukraine. Plus, the West would have to lift international sanctions that have pushed up global food and commodity prices.
President Biden and G-7 leaders agreed to finance Ukraine with a loan backed by profits on frozen Russian assets. Biden also signed a long-term security agreement to support Ukraine. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty
“We will then immediately, literally that very minute, order a cease-fire and begin talks,” Putin said during a briefing at the Russian Foreign Ministry. If Kyiv and its Western allies reject his offer, “it will be their political and moral responsibility for the continuing bloodshed,” he said.
Putin’s statement—a rare occasion of the Russian president personally repeating the demands his government has long insisted on—came a week after he said Russia was striving for victory on the battlefield. Russian forces are slowly advancing in the east of Ukraine and continue to strengthen their defensive lines.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelensky, described Putin’s offer on Friday as “a complete sham.” Kyiv has insisted that no deal that requires it to cede territory to Russia is workable.
“The ‘proposal of RF’ looks like this: 1. Give us your territories. 2. Give up your sovereignty and your subjectivity. 3. Leave yourselves unprotected,” Podolyak wrote on X, referring to the Russian Federation.
The weekend summit’s attendance list is striking for who isn’t on it. Xi will neither attend nor send an official, diplomats said.
Saudi Arabia, Brazil and South Africa said they wanted to help broker an end to the war. But Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declined to attend, and while the Saudis are sending their foreign minister, the other two countries aren’t expected to send top officials.
Biden, meanwhile, will fly past the country on his way home from Italy to make an election fundraiser. Vice President Kamala Harris will take his place.
“There is a real risk that this summit backfires for Ukraine,” said Richard Gowan, an expert on the United Nations at conflict-resolution organization Crisis Group. “I think there is also a good chance that some of the non-Western countries…will complicate matters by arguing that Ukraine should be willing to talk to Russia without preconditions.”
With the war now in its third year, having upended European security and triggered commodity price shocks through the global economy, efforts to kick-start dialogue between Russia and Ukraine have come and gone. Several countries have tried to broker peace talks, starting with Turkey in the weeks after Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Zelensky has presented his own list of 10 demands that the Kremlin isn’t entertaining. Among them are Russia withdrawing troops before peace talks begin, the restoration of Ukrainian control over currently occupied territory and the prosecution of alleged Russian war crimes.
U.S. and European officials say that in the best case the summit can get Ukraine and sympathetic international countries to agree to the conditions that should shape eventual peace terms with Russia. They also hope to build international pressure on Russia to return children taken from Ukraine and safeguard the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which Russian troops now occupy.
“We’ll work through some of those issues as well and hope to get some momentum from them,” said U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who will be in Switzerland.
The Kremlin has been scornful of the Swiss summit.
“The idea of discussing Ukraine-related issues without Russia at this summit is absurd,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.
Russian security agents last week arrested a French employee of a Swiss peace organization who had been working to foster talks between Kyiv and Moscow, for failing to register as a foreign agent.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, at a forum this month in Singapore, criticized China’s actions. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGE
At a recent security forum in Singapore, Zelensky, who had long gave priority to getting Beijing’s buy-in to the process, accused China of lobbying countries not to go to Switzerland. He also echoed Western countries’ accusation that Beijing is supplying Russia’s military with dual-use goods it can use in the war
“It is unfortunate that such a big, independent, powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin,” Zelensky said.
When Ukraine launched the process early last year, it gained some traction. Ukraine was gearing up for a major counteroffensive after Russia’s invasion had been beaten back. Most of the top targets of the initiative—China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia—attended earlier meetings.
Those hopes have reversed significantly since Oct. 7, when the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s response swung international attention to a crisis in the Middle East.
Zelensky has said that he is open to a follow-up summit later this year that Russia might attend. But some Western diplomats said they doubt that—even if Moscow becomes more willing to embrace peace negotiations—the kind of multilateral, public setting for this weekend’s summit would be the right formula.
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