Peace conference outcome ‘close to zero’
and Ukraine are set to remain locked in battle for the foreseeable future after an international gathering billed as a first step toward peace delivered no eye-catching diplomatic breakthrough that might suggest a coming end to Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War.
The absence of russia and china from the two-day conference in Switzerland on the weekend and the decision by some key countries – including India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Mexico – not to sign the meeting’s final document on Sunday meant that the gathering had little to show beyond some goodwill and pledge s to keep working for peace after more than two years of war.
Meanwhile Ukraine, starved of ammunition due to late deliveries of promised Western military aid, is trying to hold on against a Russian onslaught in eastern parts of the country.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday that the conference’s outcome was “close to zero”.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is trying to line countries up behind his version of what an eventual peace agreement should look like, said international meetings of advisers and government ministers would follow up on the talks and lay the ground for a second meeting at some future time.
Nearly 80 countries approved the final communiqué covering steps toward nuclear safety, food security, and the release of prisoners and deportees, including thousands of children abducted by Russia.
It did not zero in on the bedrussia rock – and seemingly intractable, for now – issue: Ukrainian land occupied by invading Russian forces.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said last Friday he would order an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine if Kyiv’s forces pulled out of the four ukrainian regions Russia annexed in 2022 andky iv dropped its bid to join Nato.
His other conditions for ending the war included Ukraine recognising Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea that Moscow annexed in 2014, as part of Russia; restrictions on the ukrainian military and keeping Ukraine’s non-nuclear status.
Kyiv rejected those proposals as “absurd”.
Mr Zelensky has previously presented at en-point peace formula that, among other things, demands the expulsion of all Russian forces from Ukraine and accountability for war crimes.
Those proposals are rejected out of hand by Moscow.
The war is in a critical period. The ukrainian army has shown resilience in facing down one of the world’s most formidable armies but it is unable to keep up the fight without Western resupply.
It also faces challenges with insufficient manpower and a lack of fortifications, offering Russia the chance to make battlefield gains this summer.
Russia, after more than two years of fighting, has so far been unable to deliver a knockout punch and is looking abroad for help to fuel its war effort.
Western military analysts say Russia’s army lacks quality due to losses of junior officers in the fighting.
That means the kremlin’ s forces have difficulty generating momentum at scale, allowing Ukraine to hold them to incremental gains for now.