Leaders together with US Vice President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron gathered on the mountaintop resort of Buergenstock. US President Joe Biden, in Europe for different occasions final week, didn’t attend regardless of public invites from Zelensky.
The frontlines in Ukraine have barely moved for the reason that finish of 2022, regardless of tens of hundreds of useless on either side in relentless trench warfare, the bloodiest combating in Europe since World Warfare Two.
In her closing remarks, Swiss President Viola Amherd warned that the “highway forward is lengthy and difficult”.
Russia, because it has for weeks, mocked the gathering.
“Not one of the contributors within the ‘peace discussion board’ is aware of what he’s doing there and what his function is,” mentioned Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now deputy chairman of the nation’s Safety Council.
‘THINGS CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS’
After preliminary Ukrainian successes that noticed Kyiv repel an assault on the capital and recapture territory within the battle’s first yr, a significant Ukrainian counteroffensive utilizing donated Western tanks fizzled final yr. Russian forces nonetheless maintain a fifth of Ukraine and are once more advancing, albeit slowly. No peace talks have been held for greater than two years.
“We all know that peace in Ukraine is not going to be achieved in a single step, it will likely be a journey,” European Fee Chief Ursula von der Leyen mentioned, calling for “persistence and willpower”.
“It was not a peace negotiation as a result of (Russia’s President Vladimir) Putin will not be severe about ending the battle, he is insisting on capitulation, he is insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory, even territory that at present will not be occupied.”