 "President Vladimir Putin says Russia won’t accept any enforced peace plans. AP")
Russian President Vladimir Putin mocked a planned round of Ukraine peace talks in June saying “it would have been funny if it weren’t so sad” if Russia is not invited to the negotiation table meant to bring peace to the two warring sides.
Earlier this week, the Swiss government announced plans to host a high-level international summit, inviting over 100 countries, to discuss the way forward for peace in Ukraine following over two years of catastrophic war. They also expressed hope that Russia could potentially participate in the peace efforts in the future.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had also warned that prospective ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine could be a “useless waste of time" if they don’t take Moscow’s interests into account.
Russia has rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ‘Peace Formula’, which includes demands for the withdrawal of Russian troops, compensation to Ukraine, and accountability through an international tribunal for Russia’s actions.
Swiss conference ‘some kind of freak show’
While asserting that Russia has never rejected a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian conflict, Putin said, during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, that he views the ‘Ukraine-themed’ summit as “some kind of a freak show.”
Putin ridiculed the summit saying, “They believe that we don’t belong there. And at the same time, they say that it is impossible to resolve anything without us. It would have been funny, if it were not so sad,” the Russian president was quoted as saying by _TASS.
_
Lukashenko replied that without Russian participation, parties of the ‘Ukrainian-themed’ conference could only agree on further escalation.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts‘Ukraine shouldn’t sign agreements on West’s gunpoint’
Recalling negotiations at the Istanbul summit, Putin said, “We have never refused to resolve disputes peacefully. Moreover, this is exactly what we were inclined to do.” But later the President added that the Ukrainian side should not sign peace agreements on gunpoint.
Putin said, “Ukraine should not sign it [those agreements] ‘on a gunpoint’,” and withdraw its troops from Kyiv, but “then, under the pressure from the West, the Ukrainian side walked out of these agreements.” “Immediately after we did this, our agreements were thrown into a trash bin,” Putin added.
Turkiye has recently proposed a new plan for a “peaceful” settlement of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which includes a freeze on the war and a non-aligned status for Ukraine, Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta reported.