Switzerland praises China-Brazil peace plan for Ukraine

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Switzerland’s foreign affairs ministry voiced support for a Chinese-led peace plan to end the Ukraine war, saying on Saturday that its view on such efforts had significantly changed, a position Kyiv said was disappointing and illogical.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in its third year, the two sides to the conflict remain far apart on any future path to peace. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is pursuing a “victory plan”, while Russian President Vladimir Putin says any negotiations can only begin if Kyiv abandons vast swaths of territory and drops its bid to join NATO.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry responded to the Swiss move, releasing a statement saying Zelenskiy’s peace formula was “the only way to a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace.”

It said Ukraine and Switzerland were still working to collect signatories for the communique arising from a global peace summit in June. “We cannot understand the logic of such a decision,” the foreign ministry added.

Conflict mediator Switzerland, who hosted the June summit in Buergenstock, attended a 17-nation meeting on Friday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly chaired by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim.

“We took part in this meeting as an observer and we support this dynamic,” Nicolas Bideau, chief spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Ministry told Reuters.

Bideau said Switzerland’s view of the Chinese plan first issued in May has changed since a reference was added to the UN Charter – the founding treaty of the global body which commits nations to upholding peace.

“For us, this translates into a significant change in our view of these initiatives,” Bideau said. “A concrete diplomatic effort organized by the Sino-Brazilian group could be of interest to us.”

The Buergenstock summit, to which Russia was not invited, was seen by some foreign policy experts as a Western-led effort to isolate Moscow and drew allegations that it was straying from its centuries’ old tradition of neutrality.

Since then, diplomats say Bern has been pursuing talks to find a host for a sequel summit, with “global South” countries seen as the main candidates.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry restated its adherence to the principles of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” and that proposals had to be based on the UN Charter and to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within internationally recognized borders.

It called on Switzerland “and all countries that support international law and the UN Charter” not to participate in initiatives that “can only complicate the process of achieving a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace for Ukraine.”

“Those initiatives that do not recognize the fact of Russia’s unprovoked armed aggression against Ukraine, equal the victim and the aggressor, propose de-escalation at the expense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territories, cannot be supported by Ukraine,” it added.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; additional reporting by Simon Lewis in New York, Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv, and Elaine Monaghan; editing by Jason Neely and Bill Berkrot)