Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Stock photo: Dmytro Larin, Ukrainska Pravda

Switzerland has changed the troublesome provisions of the final document of the Peace Summit, which could have had undesirable consequences for Ukraine.

Source: European Pravda’s article

Details: A compromise version of the final communiqué of the summit, which had been discussed with Kyiv’s representatives, was sent from Bern to all capitals of the participating countries on 28 May. That draft, however, turned out to be dangerous for Ukraine. 

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The key ideas for which the summit was organised in the first place were stripped out. European Pravda explained this in detail in the article Swiss Peace Summit could end up harming Ukraine as nothing is going to plan

The next day after the article was published, on 6 June, Kyiv was forced to issue a public statement saying that “Ukraine will not back down from the Peace Formula”, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a number of statements about the inadmissibility of backing down from the Peace Formula, including in Berlin on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, work on mistakes began, and on 9 June, Switzerland sent out a new draft joint communiqué to all countries, in which it unexpectedly backed down from many of the positions it had promoted.

The May draft decision of the Peace Summit did not mention the word “aggression”, and now the text refers to “the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine”. 

The previous draft decision of the summit, proposed by Switzerland, created a legal window to include Ukraine’s abandonment of part of its territory in the conditions of “sustainable peace with Russia”, if necessary.

Now the draft decision clearly states that the basis for sustainable peace will be only “a solution based on the principle of respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states”. 

Another key problem with the previous draft was that it blurred the meaning of the Peace Formula and opened up space for international discussion of all alternative visions of peace, such as the Chinese-Brazilian one, which envisages a halt to the strengthening of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and a cessation of hostilities. 

The new wording states that only peace proposals that comply with international law (i.e. an unconditional return of the 1991 borders, unless revised by Ukraine itself) and the UN Charter (in particular, Ukraine’s unconditional right to continue repelling Russian aggression and liberating the occupied territories) will be taken into account. 

In addition, in the new draft, the Swiss agreed not to mention Russia at all in the provision on peace talks, instead referring to “all parties”. 

There is no longer a weakened requirement for “confidence-building measures”, but instead “specific actions” are required. And most importantly, the references to a “second peace summit” that hinted at a commitment to invite Russia to participate have been removed. 

Currently, the draft is not yet final: there is still a possibility of point changes on 13-14 June. However, European Pravda’s sources are inclined to believe that the updated content of the decision will remain.

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