Peace summit held for Ukraine at Swiss

Ukranian President ,Volodymyr Zelensky and Swiss Federal President, Viola Amherd at the Peace Summit in Switzerland. Pic/AFP

The presidents of Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Kenya, and Somalia will join many Western heads of state, government, and other leaders at a conference this weekend to plot out the first steps toward peace in Ukraine.

Swiss officials hosting the conference say more than 50 heads of state and government, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will join the gathering at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne. Around 100 delegations including European bodies and the United Nations will be on hand.

Against the battlefield backdrop and diplomatic strategising, summit organizers have presented three agenda items: nuclear safety, such as at the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia power plant; humanitarian assistance and exchange of prisoners of war; and global food security, which has been disrupted at times due to impeded shipments through the Black Sea.

The plan includes ambitious calls, including the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory, the cessation of hostilities, and restoring Ukraine's state borders with Russia, including Crimea.

Putin's government, meanwhile, wants any peace deal to be built around a draft agreement that was 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 Russia-occupied areas. Ukraine's push over the years to join the NATO military alliance has rankled Moscow.

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