Why the "Summit on Peace in Ukraine" is a dead-end path to peace
The first “Summit on Peace in Ukraine” at the Bürgenstock in the Swiss Canton of Nidwalden on 15 and 16 June 2024 was attended by ninety-two states and eight international organisations -- far short of the reportedly 160 invitations the host-country, Switzerland, had issued. On the agenda were just three topics selected from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's 2022 peace plan -- nuclear safety, food security and humanitarian issues. Yet even then the final communique, which did not specifically reference Zelensky's plan, let alone his core demand for a complete withdrawal of Russian troops, only garnered the support of eighty-four of the delegations attending. Perhaps even more importantly, no agreement was reached on a follow-up meeting.
While it would be too harsh to pronounce the summit a failure, lacklustre international participation and a disappointing final communique raise serious questions about the future a peace process that excludes Russia and has failed to secure buy-in from China.
Back in 2022, just one week into Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the UN General Assembly adopted, with 141 votes in favour, a resolution that condemned the invasion of Ukraine and demanded the withdrawal of all Russian troops. At the time, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all voted in favour of the resolution, while China, India, and South Africa abstained. In Switzerland last week, China was absent, and none of the other four signed up to the final communique.
Part of the reason for those attending to support the final communique is likely the fact that Ukraine and its western partners have insisted that on Zelensky's peace proposal is on the table. By default, this prevents any discussion of at least seven other third-party proposals, sponsored by China, Brazil, Indonesia, the Vatican, a group of African states, and Saudi Arabia as well as a recent joint proposal by China and Brazil.
All of these proposals, are non-western initiatives, primarily focused on achieving a ceasefire. This continues to be interpreted by Ukraine and its western partners as favouring Russia by freezing the war at its current frontlines and, at least temporarily, accepting Russia's territorial gains on the ground, including the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. None of them go as far as Vladimir Putin's June 14, 2024, demands that Kyiv not only recognise the territories the Kremlin currently controls but also withdraw from those Moscow claims as a result of illegal referenda it staged in the autumn of 2014 which would entail the loss of a total of four Ukrainian regions -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia -- in addition to Crimea.
For now, this is clearly a non-starter, as Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, made clear in response to Putin’s proposal. This uncompromising approach still has the support of an estimated 58% of Ukrainians — down, however, from the more impressive over 80% in February 2023.
The key point of Zelensky’s original plan and the March, 2022, UN General Assembly resolution -- a complete Russian withdrawal and the restoration of Ukraine's full territorial integrity -- was reflected in the final communique at best in a very watered down version that referred to “the United Nations Charter, including the principles of respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states, can and will serve as a basis in achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine” and reaffirmed the signatories’ “commitment to refraining from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, within their internationally recognized borders, including territorial waters, and the resolution of disputes through peaceful means as principles of international law.”
By not explicitly demanding a Russian withdrawal and referencing general principles of international law, it could be argued, Ukraine and its western partners tried to make it somewhat more palatable for others to support the final declaration of the Swiss summit because the wording leaves more room for compromise in future negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and does not completely rule out territorial concessions by Kyiv.
Looking at the lack of endorsement of the final communique by key countries in the global south, this clearly did not work. And 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. That support was reconfirmed most recently in the Apulia G7 Leaders’ Communiqué which explicitly noted the G7’s collective commitment to “continuing to work to achieve the widest possible international support for the key principles and objectives of President Zelenskyy’s Peace Formula.” It does, however, indicate a softening of the western message in comparison to the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Statement of November 2023, which explicitly noted that a “just and lasting peace cannot be realized without the immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of Russia’s troops and military equipment from the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine”.
At Apulia, the G7 also reiterated their “commitment to Ukraine’s long-term security, including by implementing bilateral security commitments and arrangements based on the Joint Declaration endorsed in Vilnius last July”. This 2023 joint declaration, which now has over 30 signatories, was issued the day after NATO’s Vilnius Summit Communiqué, which failed to provide a clear accession perspective for Ukraine beyond the vague promise that NATO “will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree, and conditions are met”.
If anything, then, the current approach by Ukraine and the west, at best, has some way to go to adjust to a reality in which Russia's position both on the battlefield and within international diplomacy is, for now, strong enough to withstand demands to accept western and Ukrainian demands for an end to the war.
At worst, the current approach has led Ukraine into a dead end. Western support still is more rhetorical than real -- US president Joe Biden did not go to Switzerland and Canda's premier, Justin Trudeau, was the only G7 leader to stay for both days of the conference. At the same time, momentum, certainly in the global south, seems to be gathering behind the recent Chinese-Brazilian peace proposal.
Even more importantly, perhaps, Ukraine is still suffering on the battlefield. The slow pace of western military aid and the restrictions attached to it continue to hamper Ukrainian defences. And the country’s new conscription law is deeply divisive and supported by fewer than half of the population in a country short of soldiers. Meanwhile Ukraine’s power grid has been devastated by Russian attacks.
The outcome of the Swiss peace summit, therefore, is hardly the morale booster that Ukrainians require at this time. Instead, it should be taken as a signal in Kyiv and other western capitals that their current strategy offers no clear pathway to a just and secure peace that – at present – looks out of Ukraine’s reach on the battlefield.
This is an updated and expanded version of an article I co-authored with Tetyana Malyarenko for The Conversation.
We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to the Navigating the Vortex podcast via the website or on all major podcast platforms, including: