Security advisers from around the world are speaking today in Jeddah about steps towards peace in Ukraine. China is at the table, Russia is not invited. The Ukrainians call clear conditions for peace talks.
Nothing less than the basis of a new global political architecture is to be laid in Jeddah. Mykhailo Podoliak, who belongs to the Ukrainian President’s inner circle, has high expectations for the summit in Saudi Arabia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself formulated the goal of the meeting more soberly: “Cooperation with the countries of the Global South, which Russia is constantly trying to manipulate, is particularly important.”
Russia is not invited
The fact that a Chinese special envoy is also traveling to Jeddah should give the meeting impetus. At the first meeting of this format in June in Copenhagen, only India, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia took part in addition to the seven leading industrial nations. Russia, which forced war on Ukraine, is not invited this time either.
International interest in ending Russia’s war of aggression has evidently grown. Possibly because of looming food shortages as a result of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain exports.
Preparation for a peace summit
The meeting of security advisors and diplomats from all over the world is not yet about a peace treaty: the Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko speaks of an important preparatory meeting on the way to a global peace summit. Such a summit, if possible before the end of the year, was recently discussed by President Selenskyj.
The team led by the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, which is representing Ukraine in Jeddah, is now to coordinate the various peace plans proposed by Brazil, China and African countries with Zelensky’s ten-point plan.
Podoliak recalled the point that is non-negotiable for Kiev: “The full restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders. That is, the return to international law and the final end of the rule of law.” In other words: the complete withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine.
The catalog also includes the end of all hostilities, the release of all prisoners and deportees, the establishment of a special international court to investigate Russian crimes and a peace agreement.
Demands are unacceptable to Russia
All demands that Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, rejected: “Zelenskyj’s formula has nothing to do with peace. The Russian Federation has repeatedly confirmed that this formula is unacceptable to us.”
Zakharova described the talks under Saudi mediation as fraud. Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov, on the other hand, announced that the conference would be followed in order to understand the goals.