Ukraine planning summit on universal vision for peace

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Ukraine plans to hold a summit to implement on a universal level the peace proposal President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outlined at last month’s G-20 summit in Indonesia, the country’s foreign minister announced Tuesday.

“We plan to engage not only Europeans but other nations in the global south, so that the peace formula becomes a universal, not only a Western vision for peace. We plan to hold a Peace Formula Summit to implement it,” Dmytro Kuleba told an online media briefing.

Kuleba added that Ukraine believes this initiative should become a global format, and that the formula opens opportunities for all countries to show political leadership on the global stage.

Kuleba also touched on other issues, notably the latest on the Ukraine war on the ground.

“You may get fewer headlines about Russia’s war in Ukraine because since the liberation of Kherson, there have not been major frontline developments. But the truth is the war drags on,” Kuleba noted, adding that Ukraine is slowly improving its position on the ground while Russia is trying to advance at a “slow pace” and “without much success.”

“The aim is to destroy the Ukrainian energy system and leave millions of people without access to power amid freezing temperatures. Putin himself openly admitted that Russia is striking the infrastructure on purpose,” he said.

Saying that that Ukraine’s energy system is severely damaged, he stressed that it needs the support of its partners, reiterating the country’s need for transformers, equipment for restoring high-voltage networks, gas turbine and gas piston power units, needs Zelenskyy outlined earlier at a donor conference in Paris.

He further underlined his country’s need for more air defense systems and artillery equipment and ammunition.

“This war is largely an artillery war. And Ukraine needs more cannons to be able to stop Russian offensives and to continue with its own counter-offensives,” he added.

Zelenskyy’s 10 conditions laid out at the G-20 summit outline a formula for peace, the last step of which is signing a peace accord, and also touch on nuclear safety, food and energy security, and Russia’s military withdrawal from Ukraine.