President Biden will skip a summit on the Ukraine war that will be held in Switzerland despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urging him to attend.
The summit will be held on June 15 and is being billed as a “peace summit,” but Russia has not been invited to attend. At previous summits, Zelensky has pushed his demands for peace talks, which include a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine and Ukrainian control of Crimea, which are non-starters for Moscow.
Instead of going to the summit, Biden will attend a fundraising event in California and is sending Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place. “The vice president will reaffirm support for the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against ongoing Russian aggression,” a spokesperson for Harris said.
The spokesperson said Harris will “underscore the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to supporting Ukraine’s effort to secure a just and lasting peace.”
The US and its close allies have discouraged negotiations with Russia throughout the war, including talks that were held in March and April of 2022, when a real peace deal was on the table. According to Ukraine’s top negotiator at the time, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kyiv in April 2022 and told the Ukrainians to keep fighting.
Today, the US maintains that it will not pressure Zelensky to negotiate even though his demands for peace are unrealistic and Ukrainian forces have no chance of winning on the battlefield.
Over the weekend, Zelensky made a rare trip to Asia to rally support for his war effort. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, he accused China of working with Russia to undermine the Switzerland summit.
“Today … unfortunately, regrettably, Russia is using Chinese influence on the region, using Chinese diplomats, also does everything to disrupt [the] peace summit,” Zelensky said. “This is unfortunate that such a big, independent, powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin.”
China has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine throughout the war and said it wouldn’t attend the summit because it didn’t believe the meeting would facilitate a peace deal since Russia was not invited.
A peace summit without Russia. Sure. Sounds like another performance from the Comedian King. Looking back on this, there will never have been a more obvious dictator.
The bombastic fustian fool doesn't know how to exit. Time to get the hook!
A peace treaty without the victor.How quaint?
Kamala will be representing the US at the meeting, for what it's worth.
Perhaps it's a little distancing attempt by Biden for electoral reasons? Why would he want to be personally associated with this farce of a "peace conference?"
"Full stop, m'kay?"
This clown is going to end up in Miami with that other clown, Bolsonaro.
Another 'dog and pony show' so (some) of the masses really think this is about peace. Becket and Ionesco couldn't write a more absurd script for what's going on today around the world. And if you don't know by now, it's the regimes in the West that are hell bent on starting WWIII.
The West doesn't want Russia involved in the talks because if Russian FM Lavrov attends they will all be outgunned and outclassed. That being the case, it's all for show because they might come to a consensus about how they want the peace to go, and of course when they present it to Russia it will be tossed in the garbage can- and the West can then crow about how Russia doesn't want peace. Do you think for one second the US would agree to any peace talks regarding Israel that it wasn't party to? Obviously not- so why should Russia do anything different?
Zelensky is just reproducing what he has learned from the best about Western diplomacy. Sure, it just looks like some sort of bizarre comedy show, but just because he is a comedian, it isn't really meant to be comical. This truly is the state of the art of Western diplomatic ingenuity, the culmination of all combined smartness that exists within the halls of power in the West today.
I'd like to, obviously, but it is rather hard to blame Biden for preferring to beg for money at Clooney's party over attending this idiotic Swiss costume party, this effort at recordbreaking futility.
Even folks whom one would think would be pro American in their biases, like Kissinger and Jimmy Carter, have pointed out that American "diplomacy" often amounts to nothing more than a summary of American demands, repeated at a "conference" of America + American allies, clients, and stooges, and then presented on a "take it or get bombed/invaded" basis to whomever the Axis of Evil, Worse than Hitler, enemy du jour is.
As you say, Zelensky is pulling the same stunt. Gather all of his allies, and stick to his absurd, maximalist demands. And not even invite Russia to the party! Like American "peace offers" to Iraq, Serbia, Libya, etc. Diplomacy, under this model, is done AT the enemy, not WITH the enemy.
The only difference is that, usually, the USA has at least some ass to back up the checks that its mouth writes. But the Ukraine? What is Zelensky going to threaten to do if Putin does not (1) beg his forgiveness, (2) kill himself, (3) allocate 9 trillion dollars in reparations, (4) give back all the territory, and (5) submit all of his suboridinates to the ICC? Like the Black Knight in MPATHG, Zelensky could threaten to bleed on Putin!
Maybe he planned to threaten to bore him to death. Only to find out he would need his attention to do that.
War is Peace.
This is a war counsel so obviously it will lead to peace, just as soon as Russia is defeated! Russia will take defeat gracefully and for sure will never resort to carpet bombing Kiev or dropping a nuke or two.
The point of the summit is to shore up support for the war, not to find a resolution, nobody outside of people who only read headlines thinks otherwise.
This is about as close to 1984 as it gets.