Volodymyr Zelensky and his friends in the west are failing to get support from the rest of the world for their demand that Russia completely withdraw from Ukraine.
Was the the first so-called “Summit on Peace in Ukraine”, held in Switzerland on June 15 to 16, a failure? Certainly not, if you listen to the fairly upbeat reactions of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his western backers. And, to be fair, the summit has enabled Zelensky to keep Russia’s war against Ukraine high on the international agenda.
Agenda limited On the agenda were three issues addressed in the Ukrainian president’s 2022 peace plan: nuclear safety, food security and humanitarian issues. But the final communique did not reference Zelensky’s plan, let alone his core demand for a complete withdrawal of Russian troops, and only attracted the support of 84 of the delegations attending. Perhaps even more importantly, no agreement was reached on when to hold a follow-up meeting.
All these proposals are non-western initiatives primarily focused on achieving a ceasefire. Such action continues to be seen by Ukraine and its western partners as favouring Russia. A ceasefire would effectively freeze the war at its current frontlines and, at least temporarily, would accept Russia’s territorial gains on the ground, including the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
This is a far cry from the key point of Zelensky’s original plan and the March 2022 UN resolution, which called for a complete Russian withdrawal and the restoration of Ukraine’s full territorial integrity. An estimated 58% of Ukrainians still support ruling out any compromise on this issue, down from the more impressive over 80% in February 2023.
But even this watered-down version failed to attract the unanimous support of the 100 attending delegations. The reason for this failure is fairly obvious: the collective west – essentially the G7, Nato and the EU – has so far been steadfast in support of Ukraine and of Zelensky’s peace plan, and only of Zelensky’s peace plan.
At worst, the current approach has led Ukraine into a dead end. Western support still is more rhetorical than real. The US president, Joe Biden, did not go to Switzerland at all despite being in Europe for the G7. In fact, Canada’s premier, Justin Trudeau was the only G7 leader to stay for both days of the conference.
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