unsaveSave
expand-left
full screen The summit in Switzerland is supposed to be a starting point for a peace process in Ukraine. The picture was taken on Saturday. Photo: Pascal Lauener/AP/TT
Food security, how to avoid a potential reactor disaster and the return of deported Ukrainian children.
The agenda is huge as the summit in Switzerland, which aims to lay a foundation for a future peace process in Ukraine, has entered day two.
The summit is held at the Bürgenstock hotel complex outside Lucerne and brings together representatives of a hundred countries and organizations. Among these are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Russia is not invited, but the high-level meeting is supposed to lay a foundation for being able to include the attacking country in peace discussions in the future. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has, among other things, demanded that Ukraine give up four regions in the southeast, areas that are partially occupied by Russia, as well as scrap plans to join NATO in order for the hostilities to end, writes The Washington Post.
These are demands that Ukraine does not agree to.
A draft of the final communique from the meeting, according to diplomats with access to the negotiations, calls for all Ukrainian children deported to Russia during the war to be returned to their homeland. Ukrainian authorities have previously said they estimate Moscow has illegally abducted more than 19,000 children since the war began with Russia’s large-scale invasion in February 2022.
The text also requires that the ports in the Sea of Azov be rebuilt and that Ukraine be given full control over the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, in the county of the same name. The UN’s atomic energy agency, the IAEA, has repeatedly warned that the power plant is “dangerously close” to an accident.