Peace in Ukraine Summit: 13 countries reject endorsing Ukraine’s territory | DW News

Peace in Ukraine Summit: 13 countries reject endorsing Ukraine’s territory | DW News

the two-day Summit on peace in Ukraine has drawn to a close in Switzerland Ukrainian President Vladimir selinski says the support his country received from world leaders shows the international rule of law can be restored though the summit’s final communic stated all parties must be involved in talks to achieve lasting peace Russia wasn’t invited and didn’t show any interest in attending the document reaffirms a commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and calls for control of the saparia nuclear power plant to be returned to ke our chief International editor Richard Walker is here to walk us through the Diplomatic Maze of disunity over the war but let’s go first to Rosie burett she is at the peace Summit for us Rosie could you tell me if a sense of unity has emerged from the conference well there’s a couple of ways of looking at this really I’ve just emerged from some press remarks made by a series of leaders here and they all try to strike really an optimistic tone we’ve heard from president zalinsky saying the fact that more than 90 countries were gathered here is a show of support for Ukraine a show of solidarity for Ukraine and it is the highest level Gathering of this type it’s a first ofit kind Summit but that then is not the whole story because as just before we this press conference began we were sitting in the Press Room here and suddenly flashed up on screens all around the room a list of countries which had signed up to the final joint commun of this Summit and there were some names missing some notable big hitters that attended the summit either by sending an Envoy or a minister but who refused to sign up to a joint communicate and they include India Indonesia South Africa The Diplomatic heavyweights many would say of the so-called Global South so there a fractured disunity emerging uh if you look at it from that perspective still though key of claiming this as a success okay Richard tell us more then about India Indonesia and South Africa what they think about Russia and Ukraine yeah so I mean it I would definitely underline what what the way Rosie was just putting it there and I think in the in the case of some of these countries it’s not so surprising but there are one or two countries where maybe it is a bit disappointing from the point of view um of Ukraine so so let’s just take a look at what was in this communicate yeah so so that these countries were having to decide whether we put our names to this or not and basically the communic um was a pretty short document with just you know relatively small number of points but very much framed from a a point of view that is supportive towards Ukraine so referring to the fact that this ongoing War of the Russian Federation against Ukraine continues to cause large scale suffering around the world um and uh you know saying that the threat or use of force against territorial Integrity of or or ter or the independence of any state is to be to be ruled out so very much kind of the tone of the language coming um from the point of view of support for Ukraine some of those countries have been much more independent in the in international votes say at the United Nations there have been these votes in the UN General Assembly particularly early on in the war India has always for example abstained in those votes so it’s maybe too expected that when a document like this comes up which is very much kind of framed from a pro Ukraine point of view you might expect India to sit on the fence as it has done throughout this but Indonesia for instance voted for Ukraine at the United Nations uh in fact I saw Vladimir lski just recently in Singapore at a summit where he came partly to try to persuade the Indonesian incoming president to take part in this process he didn’t take part he sent a low-level uh Envoy to it and then Indonesia sitting out on this document so I think some of those countries that did not sign up for that really will be quite disappointing for Ukraine so what’s got to change do does the wording need to be made more vague I mean is that going to get get us any closer to pece well the thing is I mean it depends like how you look at what this conference really was all about and of course the the big criticism that some countries internationally have had is like how can you have a peace conference when like one side of this war is not even present when you Russia is not present now of course Russia showed no interest in being in playing a role at this and therefore we didn’t get an invitation but China also sat this out of course Russia’s biggest friend so the question is like what was the purpose of this I think from Ukraine’s point of view it was about rallying support trying to show to the other side look we’ve got 90 plus countries coming along to this conference many of them with very high level delegations that’s the kind of diplomatic support we have out in the world it may not be uniform there may be some some countries that still a bit on the fence but this is a kind of effort that Russia cannot put on and then take that as the starting point to go into some process with Russia and that will the communicate does make that clear that at the next step if we look forward where does it go from here that they have to start finding a way to to to come to some sort of process with Russia but of course we’ve heard from Russia in the last couple of days we’ve heard Vladimir Putin taking out his position he’s sounding like he has no interest in making any concessions so there’s certainly a very very long way towards before we could get to any meaningful talks Rosie can you just give me the Outlook from where you are briefly absolutely yeah I mean the question of whether Russia should be here was so much on the lips of everyone here and we certainly just heard the Ganan president saying he regretted that Russia couldn’t be part of it but certainly Russia just ahead of these talks released its own what it purported to be a kind of vision for peace but it was really dismissed by Western leaders and by Ukraine as nothing but a bid to distract from and derail this Summit because it essentially asked Ukraine to capitulate and what that shows is that even as this Summit closes and Ukraine saying it feels supported by more countries than ever across the world that the positions of Russia and Ukraine remain very far apart and of course on the Battleground the war rages on Rosie burchard will the summit’s final communic called for a just and Lasting peace and reaffirmed the commitment of signatories to refrain from the use of force to influence territorial Integrity it also outlined what it called a common Vision in three areas the safe secure operation of Ukraine’s nuclear power stations by Ukraine the secure Transit of food products by sea and the release of all political prisoners and abducted Ukrainian children let’s explore this with Keith Krauss who’s director of the center on Conflict at the Geneva Graduate Institute welcome to DW do you see anything new in this final communic was there anything in there that couldn’t have been done in an email well I don’t think it’s the communic that matters it’s actually the degree of support uh which states participated at the highest levels and the commitments that they made both within the summit and Beyond in the G7 before and and afterwards uh that reflect a strong endorsement of support for Ukraine not all states did that and of course it’s a qualified success in that regard okay so explain to us then why this matters because there’s nothing in the the communicate that we haven’t heard at the UN or by various national leaders um uh since this War Began uh two years ago so what did it achieve well I think it’s a strong signal and of course these kind of summits are designed actually to be signals in particular towards Putin and towards Russia uh and of course we all know that there was a proposal from President Putin just before the conference for his terms uh for peace and these were roundly rejected by a number of highlevel leaders and I think that suggests that even if States aren’t willing to sign on to a peace process it’s not as if Russia has many friends and allies that are supporting its position currently so the signaling is as important for for what happens down the road as the actual substance of the summit declaration okay let’s look at some of those signals because as we’ve heard not everyone who was there signed up to this final declaration Brazil Mexico Indonesia and South Africa among them what do you think this tells us that is I think the most concerning sign if I were president zinski these are are Heavy Hitters in the global South some of them are members of of the bricks and their reluctance to sign on to a communic that really also reflects previous un resolutions uh reflects the state of international law and the UN Charter uh that’s a worrying sign for any kind of long-term uh stability and so we we have a geopolitical game and we have a rules-based game being played simultaneously by some of these states and that I think is of some concern so tell us just just let’s just dive a little deeper into that because they turned up uh to this uh to this meeting uh most of them uh I think Brazil was there as an observer U they turned up but didn’t sign up so does that mean they’ve taken a side or does that mean they’re resolutely not taking sides you know right in the immediate aftermath of a conference that’s very difficult to determine but I would say that this was probably not what Switzerland as the organizer and host expected the draft communic had been C ating and had been under discussion uh for several days at least and I think the expectation was that any country that showed up had already more or less committed to it because we know that many countries who had been invited did not show up so the Diplomatic game that some of these states were playing is is a bit unclear and I think it’s more than just abstaining but rather signaling that they’re not going to uh oppose or impose a settlement on Russia in particular and some of them did Express a concern of course that Russia was not invited and Russia was not there there is a plan for a followup and we heard the Ukrainian president talk about a host of global significance what goals then will need to have been met for there to be any point in a second meeting well now I think the goals that have to be met or would be met have to be on the battlefield we know that the Russians have launched an offensive near K and elsewhere we know that there’s a lot of Ukrainian counter activity in the Ukraine in Crimea and elsewhere uh and I think that the next few months are going to demonstrate whether we are in a stalemate whether we’re in a frozen conflict or whether Ukraine with the accelerated support from Western European States and the US is in a position to shift the balance on the battlefield and of course that’s the ultimate determinant of what the terms of the peace will be let’s take a closer look at this with Felina chakarova she’s a geopolitical strat IST and former director at the Austrian Institute for European and security policy she joins us from Vienna welcome to DW so what did this two-day Summit achieve well obviously from Ukraine’s uh perspective this has been a big diplomatic success the first peace Summit um discussing a lot of um actually critical points that are entailed in Ukraine’s peace plan as well now on the other side of the story we are already living in a cold war 2.0 in a bifurcated Global world because very important uh international players from the so-called Global South did not sign the final commun of uh the peace conference and these uh countries are actually countries that are you know part of bricks and other Regional formats uh which exclude the West now um let me focus on the positive side and that is that Ukraine so a quite a successful uh week not only in terms of uh the peace Summit but also in terms of the G7 decision uh to support Ukraine with a further 50 billion uh US Dollars Alan uh the deal with the United States and so on okay those countries that didn’t sign up to to this agreement they went to the trouble of actually going um and so that must have taken a lot of people there must have taken the organizers by surprised uh when they said yeah we’re not going to sign up to this so what do we take from that do we take that they are against it or do we take that they don’t want to pick aside I take from that that they don’t want to pick aside that they are osculating between these two worlds the one being you know guided led by the West uh and this is obviously an initiative that has been organized by the West I mean the peace Summit um but at the same time uh they also do not want to worsen their relations with Russia and by extension China as you know China did not attend the peace Summit and in fact prior to the peace Summit China and Brazil uh actually proposed an alternative peace Summit so what we are going to witness next is that we will have uh you know one track of um peace process being organized and facilitated by the west and on the other side a second track of uh let’s say peace initiatives and diplomatic initiatives being organized uh not only by Russia but actually by partners of Russia within this Regional formats such as bricks and the Shanghai Organization for um you know for um the ccoo sorry right okay so we have these these these two tracks going on and and we’ve heard president zilinski talking about um uh the next uh of these uh conferences so given that this seems to be more about signaling than actually achieving anything what needs to happen in order for the for this the next stage of this conference to take place uh what will need to happen uh are actually military effects on the ground because the war will be decided um In The End by actually by facts on the ground uh and the war will continue um as I’ve been already saying also um here that it’s going to last beyond 2025 2026 so these diplomatic uh you know efforts are very important and we will see further uh such tracks of uh you know peace Summits and negotiations um but in reality it uh so long as Ukraine and Russia are not sitting um you know at the same table we will not see any progress in terms of negotiations thank you so much for joining us geopolitical strategist valina chakarova thank you thank you

The two-day Summit on Peace in Ukraine has drawn to a close in Switzerland. The vast majority of the more than 90 countries and other groups taking part supported a final communiqué reaffirming a commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the return of abducted children and political prisoners. But more than a dozen countries chose NOT to endorse the declaration.

00:00 Intro
00:55 Rosie Birchard, DW correspondent
01:57 Richard Walker, DW Chief International Correspondent
06:25 Keith Krause, Director Centre on Conflict – Geneva Graduate Institute
10:55 Velina Tchakarova, Geopolitical strategist

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