A few days before the start of a peace conference on Ukraine without Russia's participation, Kiev indicated yesterday, Tuesday, that Moscow could take part in the next summit in order to receive the road map approved by the international community for ending the war.
«We intend to prepare together the common plan that all countries will support. And we are considering the possibility, at the second summit, to invite a representative of Russia and present this joint plan together,» Adriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, told European media.
«For the second summit we will work with all our colleagues, with all the countries that want to take part in it,» Germac stressed via video link from Berlin.
Moscow has announced that it does not wish to take part in this weekend's summit and has therefore not been invited by Switzerland, the host country. Ukraine, for its part, is seeking concrete results from this summit in order to present them at a second one.
For Germak, «the bad experience» of the previous negotiations in which Moscow was involved, before its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, showed that to end the war, a proposal based on a broad platform of support, rooted in international law, must be presented.
A proposal supported by «100 or more countries» from all continents, instead of one Ukrainian position, «would be a plan that would be difficult to challenge», his chief of staff Volodymyr Zelensky estimated.
Dozens of leaders from around the world - including Zelensky - will meet on Saturday and Sunday in Switzerland for a summit considered a «first step» on the road to peace in Ukraine.
Representatives from more than 90 countries and organisations - including US Vice President Kamala Harris, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz - but not Russia and China will attend the summit.
About half of the leaders will be European. The aim of the summit, which Kiev has called for, is to «inspire a future peace process», but its outcome remains uncertain.
The «High Level Conference on Peace in Ukraine» will take place after the G7 meeting, which is being held from Thursday to Saturday in southern Italy and which will also be attended by the Ukrainian President.
