Russia will not attend a second planned international summit on peace in Ukraine because it will ignore Moscow’s proposals, a senior diplomat said Thursday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti that the first summit attended by more than 90 countries in Switzerland last month had “failed.” Moscow and its ally China snubbed the event, while some of the major participants did not sign a communique calling for peace talks and supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
“We’re aware of the intentions of the Kyiv regime and its Western curators to ‘rehabilitate’ themselves for the failed ’peace summit’… and try to hold a similar event [and] invite Russia,” Galuzin told RIA Novosti.
Ukraine has said it could invite Moscow to the next summit if it was prepared to consider Ukraine’s roadmap to peace and stop issuing ultimatums.
Days ahead of the first peace summit, President Vladimir Putin demanded Ukraine’s effective surrender as a basis for peace talks, a proposal slammed by Kyiv and its allies. He spoke as Russia was in the midst of a ground offensive in the Kharkiv region and Ukraine’s military faced increased pressure on the battlefield.
Galuzin accused Kyiv of “consciously disregarding other initiatives to resolve the Ukrainian crisis” and predicted that the upcoming event would be “another manifestation of fraud.”
“We don’t accept these ultimatums and won’t participate in such ‘summits’,” the Russian diplomat said.
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