Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin confirmed on Thursday that Russia will not attend a planned second peace summit, reportedly being proposed by Ukraine.
Speaking to the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, Galuzin criticized the summit's rhetoric and claimed that its organizers were unwilling to consider alternative initiatives for resolving the Ukrainian crisis.
“We are aware that the Kyiv regime and its Western allies intend to make up for the failed peace summit in Switzerland in mid-June … and hold another similar event,” Galuzin said.
Galuzin rejected the "ultimatums" set forth in the peace formula proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and emphasized that the summit's content, rather than its location, was the primary concern for Russia.
Context of the Proposed Summit
Ukraine aims to organize a second peace summit before the US presidential election in November and intends to invite Russia, according to Bloomberg.
The first Summit on Peace in Ukraine, held near Lucerne, Switzerland, in June, was only a partial success.
Neither Russia nor China attended, and 12 of the 92 participating countries, including some of Russia’s BRICS partners, did not sign the final communiqué.
Ahead of the June summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin listed his own preconditions for peace, which included demands that Ukraine agree to be neutral, non-aligned, non-nuclear, demilitarized, and “denazified.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior advisor to Zelensky, dismissed these proposals as “a complete sham” and “offensive to common sense.”
