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World leaders head to Switzerland for first Ukraine peace summit.
The two-day meeting in the luxury resort of Burgenstock brings together Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and more than 50 other heads of state and government, including Bulgarian Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev.
Russia was not invited and will not participate.
The aim of the forum is to lay the groundwork for a path to peace that could eventually involve Moscow, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the summit as a "distraction ploy".
He said Moscow, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, would cease fire and start peace talks "immediately" if Kiev withdrew its troops from the east and south of the country and gave up its bid for NATO membership.
Zelensky denounced Putin's demands as a territorial "ultimatum" reminiscent of Adolf Hitler. NATO and the US also immediately rejected the hard terms.
After nearly a year of stalemate, Ukraine was forced to abandon dozens of front-line settlements this spring because Russian troops had a significant advantage in manpower and resources. Since mid-May, Russian progress has slowed, and Zelensky hopes to change the pace further with the G7 summits and the Peace Summit.
The G7 summit in Italy, which Zelensky attended, proposed a new $50 billion loan to Ukraine, using interest profits on frozen Russian assets.
The leaders of the Group of Seven rich democracies said they would support Ukraine "as long as necessary".
Zelensky said the new loan would be for "both defense and reconstruction", while Putin denounced the move as "theft" and warned that it "will not go unpunished".
Meanwhile, Zelensky and US President Joe Biden signed a historic 10-year security agreement under which the United States will provide Ukraine with military assistance and training. Zelensky called the deal "a bridge to joining NATO," AFP reported.
Vice President Kamala Hari will go from the American administration to Switzerland. The leaders of Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy will be present.
The heads of the European Union /EU/ and the presidents of Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Finland and Poland are among the others who are leaving for Switzerland.
The Ukraine Peace Summit aims for the 92 countries present to adopt a final declaration on some preliminary basic principles.
Russia's BRICS allies - Brazil and South Africa - are sending representatives, India will be represented at ministerial level, and China will not participate at all without Moscow's presence.
Finding common ground
The summit takes place in the ultra-exclusive Burgenstock hotel complex, perched high above Lake Lucerne in a classic Swiss postcard landscape.
The meeting will focus on narrow topics based on the commonality between Zelenskiy's 10-point peace plan presented in late 2022 and UN resolutions on the war, which have been passed with broad support.
The summit aims to find ways to a lasting peace for Ukraine based on international law and the UN Charter; a possible framework for achieving this goal; as well as a road map for how the two sides could reconcile in a future process.
Nuclear, food and humanitarian topics
On June 15, Saturday, a plenary session will be held with the participation of all delegations.
A day later, on Sunday, working groups will discuss in detail three topics: nuclear safety, freedom of navigation and food security, as well as humanitarian aspects. They will look at shipping in the Black Sea, the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of children deported to Russia.
A second summit is planned, which Kiev hopes Russia will attend and receive a "joint plan" presented by the other participants.
Burgenstock Mountain is surrounded by the lake on three sides, and the hotel complex sits on a ridge about 450 meters above the water, making it relatively easy to isolate from traditional physical threats.
However, the Swiss government said its websites had been repeatedly cyber-attacked in the run-up to the summit and noted an increase in disinformation. | BGNES
