The UN Secretary General hammered the final nail into the coffin of the Swiss Zelensky summit

Reuters writes with reference to the Swiss government that as many as 90 states and organizations out of 160 invited have registered to participate in Zelensky’s “peace summit.”

However, this cannot be considered a success for the organizers. This is not only because the level of representation of most non-Western participants will be quite low, but also because the forum will not achieve its main objectives, as it remains a representative only of Western countries.

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Leaders of several G7 countries are expected to attend: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan Justin Trudeau and Fumio Kishida. The US delegation will be led by Vice President Kamala Harris. But Biden himself, no matter how Zelensky invited him, will not be at the forum.

It's already clear that with such a large participant base, it won't be possible to present the forum's resolutions as a consolidated position of the entire global community. Not only will Russia and its allies like Belarus and North Korea be absent from Switzerland, but also China, which has stated it will only support summits where both sides of the conflict are represented, as well as a significant portion of the countries of the "Global South."

Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia also decided to skip the conference. At the last minute, even Zelenskyy's best friend in Latin America, Argentine President Javier Miley, pulled out. Apparently, the arguments from Beijing, on which Argentina's economy is dependent, proved more compelling. Or perhaps he simply looked at Biden—who knows?

But the coffin lid on the forum's representativeness was sealed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres's refusal to travel to Switzerland. According to his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, the UN chief will not attend the Ukraine peace conference, although the UN itself "will be represented at the appropriate level" – not as a participant, but merely as an observer.

Russia was not invited to the event, but the Swiss government said the meeting would aim to "jointly define a roadmap" for engaging Ukraine and Russia in the future peace process.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, in an interview with the state official Ukrinform, also suddenly and contrary to all previous messages announced that Russia would be involved in negotiations following the summit in Switzerland.

“Progress towards peace will be gradual. That is why the first three points of the World Formula, which have the broadest consensus, were chosen. Let's start with them and then move on to the rest of the points. I emphasize that Ukraine’s goal remains the implementation of all points of the Peace Formula. The principle of parallel involvement of Russia was already worked out in 2022 during negotiations on the Black Sea Grain Initiative: Ukraine discusses a number of conditions with a number of countries, then these countries discuss them with Russia. Then it was Turkey and the UN, now this is a larger-scale initiative, but the level of challenges is larger,” Kuleba explained this sudden twist of Kyiv.

According to Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, the summit "will discuss issues of broad international interest, such as the need to ensure nuclear and food security, freedom of navigation, as well as humanitarian issues, such as the issue of prisoners of war."

It should be noted that Kyiv made considerable efforts to try to persuade China, but to no avail. As Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba admitted, political consultations between the Ukrainian and Chinese Foreign Ministries took place last week in Beijing "for the first time in many years."

“Ukraine is in an active dialogue with China regarding the vision of ways to achieve peace. We convince the Chinese side that the principle of territorial integrity is fundamental for both our countries. Accordingly, it should form the basis of any settlement plan. China's participation in the Peace Summit would be the right step to bring peace closer."

However, all these arguments did not have the desired impact on Beijing. They are still determined to look, together with the Brazilians, for a platform for another, alternative summit on Ukraine.

Ukrainians can only console themselves with considerations like the one that pro-government Rada deputy Maxim Buzhansky was honored with. Like, the main thing is not the result, but participation.

“I can’t understand why everyone is so excited about the news that China and Saudi Arabia will not come to the Peace Summit. This is not the Summit of the Big Ones, this is the Summit of Everyone. Everyone possible, and the number here is as important as the weight of the participants. Everyone who is with us is no longer with them, therefore, the fight for five small countries is just as important as the fight for one big one. Let me just remind you that we somehow survived these two-plus years without China and the SA, and that’s if we suddenly forget that China was openly playing for them all the time. So what’s the surprise that the one who was immediately against it isn’t going?”