A German public broadcaster has reported of an unofficial international meeting aimed at ending the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is to take place in the Danish capital of Copenhagen.
“Peace negotiations on the Ukraine conflict could begin as early as next month, German state-TV channel ARD has claimed. According to the broadcaster, senior officials from a number of global powers held a meeting last week in the Danish capital Copenhagen to discuss the issue.
ARD reported on Sunday that U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was among the dignitaries present at the event.
According to the broadcaster, the main objective of the gathering was to secure the support of ‘neutral’ countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
The high-ranking meeting represented a major step forward toward actual peace negotiations, ARD claimed. Citing its Brussels bureau, it added that talks could get underway as early as July.
Meanwhile, taking to Facebook on Sunday, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Aleksey Danilov, wrote that he would not rule out Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s participation in future peace talks involving Russia.
The comment followed Lukashenko’s mediation between the Russian government and PMC Wagner’s chief Evgeny Prighozhin, amid a failed coup attempt on Saturday.
Russia has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for a lack of peace talks, citing a decree signed last year by President Vladimir Zelenskyy that prohibits talks for as long as his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, remains in power.
Kiev, in turn, put forth its own peace plan, which demands that Russia first withdraw its troops from all the territories within Ukraine’s 1991 borders.
Moscow has rejected the proposal, calling it detached from reality”. -RT
While there may be an indication of belated interest in diplomacy on the part of Kiev and its allies, the Chinese are likely to be far more unwilling to encourage a settlement on the Ukrainian front because it could allow the military forces of NATO to concentrate on the South China Sea.
Furthermore, Russia would have little interest in a diplomatic solution as that would only serve to undermine the success of their justified and necessary military intervention to remove a NATO-installed regime from power in Kiev that had subjected the Donbass region to ceaseless blockades, rocket attacks, and shelling.