Ukraine hopes Russia will attend second Ukraine peace summit

An helicopter of Swiss Air force takes to in Obburgen next to the luxury Burgenstock resort, central Switzerland on June 10, 2024, ahead of the Ukraine peace summit on June 15-16

Ahead of the first summit on peace in Ukraine, Kiev said Tuesday it wanted Russia to attend a second summit, to receive an internationally agreed roadmap towards ending the conflict.

Moscow said it had no interest in joining this weekend's meeting and so was not invited by hosts Switzerland, while Ukraine wants to get some concrete outcomes from the meeting to take forward to a second summit.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office, said the "bad experience" of previous negotiation formats involving Moscow, prior to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, meant that the end to the war needed to be built on a broad platform of support from the outset — and be rooted in international law.

"For the second summit, we will be working with all colleagues, with all countries who will be interested to be involved," Yermak told European media organizations, via video link from Berlin.

"We are planning to prepare together the joint plan which will be supported by all these responsible countries. And we're looking for the possibility, in the second summit, to invite a representative of Russia, and together present this joint plan."

A perspective backed by "100 or more countries" drawn from every continent, rather than just Ukraine's position, "will be a real plan which will be very difficult to dispute... a real road map how to stop this war and how to settle the crisis".

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