Russia said it was becoming increasingly clear to the world that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's plan to resolve the nearly two-year war had no hope of success and described meetings related to it as "pointless and harmful".
The fourth in a series of such meetings, involving officials from several dozen countries, but not Russia, was held this week in Davos. A commentary on the Russian Foreign Ministry website said the meeting exposed differences between the participants and did not lead to increased support for the proposals.
"There is a growing understanding that a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace cannot be achieved if we focus on the ultimatum in the 'Zelensky formula,'" the commentary said.
"All such meetings ... including the meeting in Davos and those that will follow it are meaningless and harmful to the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis," the statement added.
Russia has not been invited to the meetings, which focus on Zelensky's peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, recognition of its 1991 post-Soviet borders and a mechanism to hold Moscow accountable.
Zelensky rules out negotiations with Moscow until Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine. In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he called on the West to step up sanctions pressure on Moscow and increase its support for Kiev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on January 16 that Ukraine's statehood could suffer an "irreparable blow" if the pattern of war continued, and that Russia would never be forced to give up gains it had made in its "military campaign." .
Through the meetings and other diplomatic moves, Ukraine is seeking to gain more support from the "global south," where many countries stayed out of the conflict.
Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said that the meeting in Davos has participants from 18 Asian countries, 12 African countries and six South American countries.
After the latest meeting on Zelensky's peace plan, the Swiss government agreed to host a global peace summit in Ukraine at Zelensky's request.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the talks in Davos as "just talks for the sake of talks", saying that without Russia's participation there can be no progress in reaching a peace agreement./BGNES
