Zelenskyy eyes ‘history being made’ at Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace conference. But Russia is absent

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press

OBBÜRGEN, Switzerland (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday predicted “history being made” at the Swiss-hosted conference that aims to plot the first steps toward peace in Ukraine even though experts and critics don’t expect any major breakthroughs because Russia isn’t attending.

The presidents of Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Somalia joined dozens of Western heads of state, other senior government leaders and high-level envoys at the meeting, in the hopes that Russia could join in one day.

In a brief statement to reporters alongside Swiss President Viola Amherd at the outset of the summit, Zelenskyy cast the gathering as a success, saying: “We have succeeded in bringing back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop war and establish a just peace.”

“I believe that we will witness history being made here at the summit,” he said.

Swiss officials hosting the conference said more than 50 heads of state and government would attend the gathering at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne. Some 100 delegations, including European bodies and the United Nations, were also expected.

Who would and wouldn’t show up was a point of intrigue about a meeting that critics said would be pointless without the presence of Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

As U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the venue, shuttle buses rumbled up a mountain road that snaked up to the site, with police along the route checking journalists’ IDs and helicopters overhead ferrying in VIPs.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia sent their foreign ministers to the meeting, while key developing countries such as Brazil — only an observer at the event — India and South Africa were represented by lower-level officials.

China, which backs Russia, joined scores of countries that sat out the conference. Beijing has said any peace process would require the participation of Russia and Ukraine, and has floated its own ideas for peace.

Last month, China and Brazil agreed to six “common understandings” on a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, asking other countries to endorse them and play a role in promoting peace talks. The six points include an agreement to “support an international peace conference held at a proper time that is recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans.”

Zelenskyy led a diplomatic push to draw participants to the Swiss summit.

Russian troops who control vast swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine have made territorial gains in recent months. When talk of a Swiss-hosted peace summit began last summer, Ukrainian forces had recently regained large tracts of territory, notably near the souther city of Kherson and the northern city of Kharkiv.

Against the battlefield backdrop and diplomatic strategizing, summit organizers have presented three agenda items: nuclear safety, including at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant; humanitarian assistance and a prisoner of war exchange; and global food security, which has been disrupted at times due to impeded shipments through the Black Sea.

That to-do list, which includes some of the least controversial issues, is well short of the proposals and hopes laid out by Zelenskyy in a 10-point peace formula in late 2022. That plan called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory, the cessation of hostilities and the restoration of Ukraine’s original borders with Russia, including Russia’s withdrawal from occupied Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, wants any peace deal to be built around a draft agreement negotiated in the early phases of the war that included provisions for Ukraine’s neutral status and limits on its armed forces, while delaying talks about Russian-occupied areas. Ukraine’s push to join NATO over the years has rankled Moscow.

Ukraine is currently unable to negotiate from a position of strength, analysts say.

“The situation on the battlefield has changed dramatically,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, noting that although Russia “can’t achieve its maximalist objectives quickly through military means,” it is gaining momentum on the battlefield.

“So a lot of countries that are coming to the summit would question whether the Zelenskyy peace formula still has legs,” he told reporters Wednesday.

With much of the world’s focus recently on the war in Gaza and national elections in 2024, Ukraine’s backers want to bring global attention back to Russia’s breach of international law and a restoration of Ukraine’s territory.

On Friday, Putin called the conference ”just another ploy to divert everyone’s attention.”

The International Crisis Group, an advisory firm that works to end conflict, wrote this week that “absent a major surprise on the Bürgenstock,” the event is “unlikely to deliver much of consequence.”

“Nonetheless, the Swiss summit is a chance for Ukraine and its allies to underline what the U.N. General Assembly recognized in 2022 and repeated in its February 2023 resolution on a just peace in Ukraine: Russia’s all-out aggression is a blatant violation of international law,” it said.

Experts said they would be looking at the wording of any outcome document and plans for the way forward. Swiss officials, aware of Russia’s reticence about the conference, have repeatedly said they hope Russia can join the process one day, as do Ukrainian officials.

“Most likely, the three items under review will be endorsed by the participants. But then the big question is ‘OK, what comes next?’” Gabuev said. “And I don’t think we have a very clear answer to that question yet.”

As leaders headed to the conference venue, the war raged on.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s southern Belgorod region, blamed Ukraine on social media for shelling Friday that struck a five-story apartment building in the town of Shebekino, killing five people. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

In Ukraine, shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded 15 others on Friday and overnight, regional officials said. Gov. Oleh Syniehubov of the Kharkiv region, which has been the focus of a recent Russian offensive

Meanwhile, local officials said Russia-fired missiles and cluster bombs killed three civilians and wounded four others Saturday in a village in eastern Ukraine. Separately, Ukrainian authorities reported that shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded 15 others throughout the country on Friday and overnight.

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Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed to this report.