Russia says it won't attend Ukraine's second peace summit
Russia will not participate in Ukraine's planned second peace summit, the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin.
Kyiv said it aims to invite a Russian representative to the second conference to present a peace plan based on President Volodymyr Zelensky's peace formula and international input. No official invitation has been sent so far.
Russia was not invited to the first global peace summit held on June 15-16 in Switzerland.
The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed Ukraine's peace efforts and its 10-point formula as irrelevant, calling it an "ultimatum."
After meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reportedly said that the only proposal that the Kremlin's chief is willing to discuss is based on the unsuccessful peace talks in early 2022.
The talks hosted in Belarus and Turkey in the first months of the full-scale war were the only occasion during which both parties led direct peace negotiations.
While the talks eventually broke down, a leaked peace draft would bar Ukraine from entering NATO while permitting EU membership, limited the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and postponed the matter of occupied Ukrainian territories to a later date.
Speaking a day ahead of the Switzerland summit, Putin said that as a condition for peace negotiations, Ukraine must fully withdraw from four partially occupied oblasts that Moscow illegally annexed in 2022. Kyiv rejected this demand.
In turn, the Kremlin has rejected Ukraine's key condition in the peace formula on the full withdrawal of Russian forces.
Nate Ostiller
