French President Emmanuel Macron said at an international summit for peace in Ukraine on Saturday that a sustainable end to the war with Russia cannot involve Kyiv’s “capitulation.”
“All of us are committed to building a sustainable peace... Such a peace cannot be a Ukrainian capitulation,” Macron said at the gathering of world leaders in Switzerland.
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He added, “There is one aggressor and one victim.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he would present Moscow with a proposal for ending the war once the international community had agreed upon it.
Speaking at the forum, he hoped the summit would lay the groundwork for a “just” and “lasting” settlement with Russia.
“We must decide together what a just peace means for the world and how it can be achieved in a lasting way,” Zelensky said. “Then it will be communicated to the representatives of Russia so that at the second peace summit, we can secure the real end of the war.”
Zelensky did not indicate whether he was prepared to engage in direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Draft summit declaration condemns Russia’s war in Ukraine
A draft of the final summit declaration, obtained by Reuters, blames Russia’s war in Ukraine for causing “large-scale human suffering and destruction” and calls for the respect of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
The document, dated June 13, also demands that Kyiv regain control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and access its seaports. The draft has removed an earlier reference to Russian “aggression,” replacing it with “war.”
China can play a key role in establishing peace in Ukraine
During a conversation with journalists at the peace summit in Switzerland, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that China can play a key role in establishing peace in Ukraine, as reported by the local publication Yle.
“I strongly urge China to use its influence on Putin to end this war,” Stubb said.
He also highlighted the potential role of the Global South in achieving peace, noting that many representatives from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and especially the Middle East are participating in the summit.
“This gives us hope that we can embark on the path to peace, and I believe this must happen on Ukraine's terms,” Stubb said.
He also called on Vladimir Putin to stop the war while rejecting Putin’s “peace initiative.”
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, suggested that China is not participating in the peace summit in Switzerland because Putin asked the Chinese leadership to abstain, according to an AP report.
“What is clear is that China is not here, and I presume they’re not here because Putin asked them not to come and they obliged Putin,” said Sullivan.
“And I think that says something about where China stands with respect to Russia's war in Ukraine. I think countries should take notice of that,” he added.
On the eve of the summit, Putin laid out his conditions for ending the war. He demanded that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the south and east of the country and renounce its ambitions to join the NATO military alliance. These conditions were quickly dismissed by Zelensky.
“He is not calling for negotiations. He is calling for surrender,” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said at the summit on Saturday in response.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz revealed that a ceasefire without “serious negotiations with a roadmap towards a lasting peace... would only legitimize Russia's illegal land grab.” Scholz added that G7 leaders did not discuss Putin’s proposals for peace in Ukraine since everyone knew they were not “meant seriously.”
He stressed that the Russian president’s proposals were aimed only at distracting from the conference.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said that “freezing the conflict today with foreign troops occupying Ukrainian land is not an answer. It is a recipe for future wars of aggression.”
However, some countries outside Ukraine’s traditional circle of partners stressed the need to give Russia a voice and criticized some Western sanctions targeting Moscow.
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the conference that Kyiv would have to be prepared for a “difficult compromise” if it wanted to end the conflict.
Kenya’s President William Ruto criticized a recent G7 deal to offer a $50-billion loan to Ukraine secured against profits from frozen Russian assets. “The unilateral appropriation of Russian assets is equally unlawful,” Ruto said in his opening address, after calling Russia’s invasion a “horrifying spectacle of carnage and devastation.”
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