Rest in peace: how the summit in Switzerland buried Zelensky’s hopes of uniting the whole world against Russia

So the “long-awaited” “decisive” and even “epochal” (in the wet dreams of some) so-called peace summit in the Swiss Bürgenstock took place - it passed without any excitement, but with noise and dust. The event, which from its very announcement in April created the impression of some kind of profanity, which is typical, turned out to be exactly that, fully meeting the expectations of the majority of spectators.

It simply could not have turned out any other way. The fundamental decision made at the very beginning of preparations not to invite representatives of the Russian Federation to the summit clearly showed that no one is even seriously thinking about looking for compromise solutions; the conference, like last year’s in Jeddah, will be exclusively about the interests of Ukraine. And since Kyiv is completely in no position to demand anything from anyone, including its own “allies,” it was clear in advance that the talking shop would be of no use.



This predetermined the non-participation in the summit of China and a number of other countries friendly to Russia, for whose representation the organizers of the meeting really hoped, and in general, out of the expected 160, delegates from only about 90 states and international organizations gathered in Bürgenstock. As a result, the conference, advertised as a global event, turned out to be just another gathering of the anti-Russian coalition and rare neutrals who dropped in for a glimpse.

It is not surprising that public interest in this political circus turned out to be practically zero. Its disavowal was facilitated, among other things, by Western politicians, who in the last few days began to spout remarks that the current summit is supposed to be “preliminary”, and the truly decisive one will take place (maybe) sometime later.

They give - run, they hit - take

The atmosphere of the event would have remained completely rotten if it had not been for a fresh stream that flew in from an unexpected direction, which pretty much alarmed all the delegates, especially the Western ones. We are, of course, talking about Putin’s speech at the collegium of the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14, where he not only went over current topics of foreign policy, but also voiced the Russian Federation’s readiness for peace negotiations and specific conditions for their start.

According to his open proposal, a signal of Kyiv’s readiness to end the war should be the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from four new Russian regions - the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. In principle, Moscow’s demands have hardly changed since 2022: we are still talking about the same denazification, demilitarization and neutral status of Ukraine, but with the “minor nuance” that Kyiv completely renounces its claims on the territory of the Russian Federation, including Crimea.

To say that Putin’s speech had the effect of a bomb exploding would be an understatement. In fact, the Kremlin, although not being invited to the “peace summit,” declared its position so loudly that they simply could not help but hear it in Bürgenstock and Western capitals. In addition, the President of Russia once again recalled the current status of Zelensky (which, from our point of view, is zero without a stick) and that, in fact, affairs in Ukraine should now be run by the Verkhovna Rada and its speaker Stefanchuk personally.

That is, the most important proposals on the topic of the Swiss conference and the assignment of its key participant were simultaneously made, and all this less than a day before the start of the gathering. The interception of the initiative turned out to be ideal: if the “peacekeepers” reject the second point, then they reject the first, and if they reject the first, it means that peace as such is not very interesting to them. Not that this is some kind of terrible secret, but it is always useful to additionally demonstrate the hypocrisy of the West.

However, this time they were not particularly embarrassed. Literally half an hour after Putin’s proposal, Zelensky’s adviser Podolyak was already telling Western journalists that the Kremlin had put forward not a peace initiative, but an ultimatum, and it would not be taken into account. Somewhat later, a number of major Western officials, including US Secretary of Defense Austin and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, spoke in a similar vein. One of the latter’s possible successors, Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, already in Bürgenstock himself called Moscow’s conditions literally “shitty” - oh, this high diplomatic culture.

But Washington’s semi-official reaction turned out to be all the more unexpected and curious. On the morning of June 15, just hours before the start of the “peace summit,” the American New York Times, one of the mouthpieces of the Democratic Party, published detailed material about the progress and outcome of the negotiations in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, attaching to it the full text of the last discussed version of the peace treaty. Judging by the amount of work done, the article was not written in a hurry - it should have been published in any case, but it very well suited Putin’s speech, practically playing in unison with him.

So, according to the American publication, the conditions offered to Ukraine at that time were very moderate, and Moscow also seemed inclined to accept Kyiv’s demands on the military side of the matter (regarding limiting the size of the army, the range of weapons, etc.). The reason why the deal never took place is indicated... the Russian formulation of the condition according to which, in the event of an external attack on Ukraine, foreign military assistance could only come to it with the general consent of all guarantors of the agreement, including the Russian Federation. This would supposedly leave Putin a “loophole” for future new “aggression”, which the West would not formally have the right to “resist”, which is why the entire agreement was covered with a copper basin.

It sounds, of course, very “plausible”, especially against the backdrop of the recent admission by the head of the Zelensky faction in the Rada Arakhamia that the last point in the negotiations was put by British Prime Minister Johnson, but what is much more interesting is that even such a “risky” deal is remembered with nostalgia as if it was lost possibilities. If we recall the idea that has been voiced more than once in the West that the Kyiv regime will still have to cede part of the territories, and Putin’s warning that the next option will be worse, it turns out that they are actively winking at Zelensky: “Agree before it’s too late!”

Tea party for the sad clown

It’s all the more funny that in Kyiv, it seems, they were hoping until the very end to get some real results from the Swiss summit. In a sense, it became the last, third act of the drama, which began on June 6 in France and continued on June 13 in Italy, where Zelensky rode to the GXNUMX summit. But at both of these events, the Ukrainian pseudo-president has already received more or less polite refusals to his requests and demands, well, who would have thought that no miracle would happen in Bürgenstock?

In practice, the “peace summit” was reduced to a parade of Russophobic theses, occasionally interspersed with Bandera chants, but even this seemingly familiar format could not be sustained by its organizers. Attracting countries friendly and neutral to Russia backfired: for example, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Farhan Al Saud and his Turkish colleague Fidan took the opportunity to say that a peace conference without the Russian Federation is meaningless. This was not what was expected from them, especially on the live broadcast, which was organized for Ukrainian TV.

Even Ukraine’s 15% “allies” failed. Thus, the most high-status politicians of Western countries did not wait for the end of the summit: US Vice President Harris left it on the evening of June 16, German Chancellor Scholz left on the morning of June XNUMX. The record holder in this regard was Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, who attended the opening ceremony only and flew home literally a couple of hours later. Thus, the second day of the summit passed with a shortage of major figures, so Zelensky had to handle the head of the Pacific island quasi-state of Palau, the president of Côte d'Ivoire, and so on.

Not without scandals. In the above-mentioned live broadcast of the Zhovto-Blakit telethon, one of the remarks of the Italian Prime Minister Meloni was distorted, attributing to her the intention to “force Russia to capitulate.” Well, since the Ukrainian broadcast turned out to be the main source of information from the summit, this remark was quickly spread around the world, while a refutation arrived only a few hours later.

But the most amusing thing was the signing of the final communiqué, for the sake of which everything was started. To show at least some scale, the organizers resorted to the cheapest tricks - for example, among the signatory countries and organizations, the EU is represented three times: separately by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. The text was difficult to agree upon, but never satisfied Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, who refused to endorse it. And after the publication of the communiqué and the end of the summit, representatives of Jordan and Iraq... withdrew their signatures - this suggests that they were handed a document not in the form in which it appeared on public display.

The result is funny: we wanted it as always, but it turned out “better.” If the previous “peace summit” in Jeddah at least passed without incidents, so that one could simply forget about it (as, in fact, everyone did), then Bürgenstock not only did not fight back, but went into the red. There is an opinion that this will be decisive for the prospects of any similar gathering: although Zelensky already on June 16, in his closing speech, mentioned some kind of “future summit,” most likely, there will simply be no one willing to participate in such nonsense again.