After China repeatedly refused to attend the Ukraine Peace Summit, more and more countries have started to "retreat" and do not want to give Ukraine this "face" anymore. At this moment, the Ukrainian side, who sensed that something was wrong, immediately changed his attitude and softened his tone.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
There are less than two days left until the first peace summit in Ukraine, which will take place in Switzerland. At this time, the Ukrainian side suddenly changed its tone on a "big event". Recently, Yermak, director of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said that Ukraine hopes that Russia can participate in the second summit.
Yermak claimed that at the second peace summit, Ukraine will cooperate with all colleagues, all countries interested in participating. On this basis, countries work together to develop a joint plan. It can be expected that this plan will be supported by all responsible countries. On this occasion, the Ukrainian side is exploring the possibility of inviting Russian representatives at the second summit and hopes to jointly propose this joint plan with the Russian side.
Yermak noted that the views drawn in this case will be supported by 100 or more countries from all continents, and not only on behalf of Ukraine. Therefore, that will also become a "real road map" on how to stop this conflict, how to resolve the crisis.
At the same time, Yermak also said that Ukraine is ready to "listen to China's position" at any time and hopes that China can join the peace talks process as soon as possible. He mentioned that before the official start of the summit, the Chinese side still has a few days to consider whether to change its previous position of not attending the summit.
If the Chinese side is willing to change its mind and choose to send a high-level representative to visit Switzerland, then the Ukrainian side will feel very honored. However, if the Chinese side still insists on not attending, the Ukrainian side will continue to strengthen cooperation with China and try its best to "do its best" so that the Chinese side is willing to appear at the "second summit".
Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine
It is worth noting that this is the first time since the outbreak of Russia and Ukraine that the Ukrainian side has revealed its intention to hold a dialogue with the Russian side at the "peace conference", which is a rather significant change. Combined with Yermak's statement, it is not difficult to see that this time, the reason why the Ukrainian side changed its position was, to a large extent, influenced by China's choice. After all, China's attitude of not attending the meeting this time can be described as quite firm.
In fact, before this summit, Ukraine did not try to hold a so-called "peace summit", but each time, they excluded Russia. The last such summit was held in Davos, Switzerland, in January. At that time, China and Russia also did not send representatives to participate.
As a result, as with many previous summits, the last meeting did not produce anything substantive. Now, seeing that China has once again refused to participate in the meeting, it is clear that the Ukrainian side does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. As a result, they began to think deeply about China's proposals. On this basis, Zelensky finally decided to issue a new round of invitations to Russia to participate.
In fact, China's view has always been very clear and necessary. In China's view, for the peace summit to be successful, three conditions must be met. The first is that both Russia and Ukraine agree, the second is that all parties participate on an equal footing, and the third point is that all peace plans should be discussed fairly. But the summit in Switzerland clearly failed to meet these conditions.
Meeting of the foreign ministers of China and Ukraine
However, even in this case, Yermak did not forget to bluff first. He bluntly said that the summit has been a success, because so far, this summit has more than 90 confirmed participation, and the scale is quite large.
However, the words of several EU diplomats punctured Ukraine's illusions. According to people familiar with the matter, the number of countries and organizations that have now confirmed their participation in the summit has dropped from 93 to 78. In just a few days, 15 countries have "withdrawn".
In addition, at the beginning of this month, the Ukrainian side even claimed that 107 countries and international organizations had confirmed their participation, but after that, in the report of the Ukrainian side, there were only more than 90 participants. In this case, the list of countries that had agreed to participate in the summit may be reduced again. At that time, this summit can only be a "failure".
In this case, Zelensky naturally does not dare to imagine that there will be any major consensus reached at the summit. As a result, he has long since abandoned his ambitious ten-point "peace formula."
It can be seen from the draft joint statement revealed by the Ukrainian side that at this summit, countries will only focus on harmless three-point proposals. That is, "ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants", "ensuring food security", and "releasing prisoners of war and returning the taken children to Ukraine", as for the previous two proposals, "Russian withdrawal" and "restoration of Ukrainian territory", they are not mentioned in the draft.
On the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine conflict
In the draft joint statement, the Ukrainian side also specifically mentioned that the participation of all parties is indispensable in order to achieve peace, thus emphasizing the need to include Russia in the discussions in the future. That is, the Ukrainian side is indeed seriously considering including Russia in the framework of peace talks.
At present, it seems that if Ukraine really invites Russia to participate in the next peace conference, it can definitely be regarded as a "clever move" to "advance by retreating"; as long as the invitation letter is issued, Ukraine will become the party that takes the initiative to persuade and promote peace talks and build consensus, and can grasp the initiative to a large extent. In this way, whether the Russian side agrees or not, it will be beneficial for Ukraine.
It can be expected that if the Ukrainian side can really make good use of this step and can also grasp more bargaining chips in the peace talks, and if Zelensky can more actively accept China's other proposals, China is also likely to reciprocate by taking the initiative to send representatives to the meeting, and may even actively do Russia's work to help Russia and Ukraine achieve real peace.