The presidents of Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Kenya, and Somalia will join many Western heads of state and government and other leaders at a conference this weekend aimed at plotting out the first steps toward peace in Ukraine, with Russia notably absent. Swiss officials hosting the conference say more than 50 heads of state and government, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will join the gathering at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne.
Some 100 delegations, including European bodies and the United Nations, will be on hand. Who will show up—and who will not—has become one of the key stakes of a meeting that critics say will be useless without the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and is pushing ahead with the war.
As U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the venue, shuttle buses were rumored. bled up a mountain road that snaked up to the site—at times with traffic jams—with police along the route checking nalists’s IDs and helicopters ferrying in VIPs buzzing over. Meanwhile, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have dispatched their foreign ministers, while key developing countries like Brazil, an observer at the event, India, and South Africa will be represented at lower levels.
China, which backs Russia, is joining scores of countries that are sitting out the conference, many of whom have more pressing issues than the bloodiest conflict in far-away Europe since World War II. Bei-
Jing says any peace process needs the participation of both Russia and Ukraine and has floated its own ideas for peace.
Last month, China and Brazil agreed to six “common understandings” on a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, asking other countries to endorse them and play a role in promoting peace talks. The six points include an agreement to “support an international peace conference held at a proper time that is recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans.”
Zelenskyy has recently led a diplomatic push to draw in participants to the Swiss summit. Russian troops, who now control nearly a quarter of Ukrainian land in the east and south, have made some territorial gains in recent months. When talk of a Swiss-hosted peace initiative began last summer, Ukrainian forces had recently regained large swaths of territory, notably near the cities of southern Kherson and northern Kharkiv.
Against the backdrop of battlefield back-drop and diplomatic strategizing, summit organizers have presented three agenda items: nuclear safety, such as at the Russia-controlled Zapor-Izhzhia power plant; humanitarian assistance and exchange of prisoners of war; and global food security, which has been disrupted at times due to impeded shipments through the Black Sea.