93 countries of the world took part in the Global Peace Summit initiated by Ukraine and held in Switzerland over the weekend. This is almost half of the 195 existing countries in the world. 80 of the participants signed the final communiqué in the Ukrainian version. Another 4 out of 8 international organizations present at the event supported the agreement. This is despite the frenzied resistance that the Kremlin has put up, despite the knowledgable propaganda, shuttle diplomacy with flattering offers mixed with bribes and threats. Here we should not try to evaluate the situation through the prism of the eternal dilemma of the half-empty or half-full glass. Never before has Ukraine assembled such a powerful coalition in its favour. A coalition, in which the entire Euro-Atlantic world is on Ukraine’s side. The coalition testified that Russia and China do not have a monopoly on speaking from the so-called global south. Furthermore, countries that nominally show interest in participating in BRICS spoke on the side of Ukraine. And despite a small section of the participants who did not sign the final communiqué, mostly the countries that are trying to play the role of mediators in the future peaceful settlement did not do so, this is also not a position on Putin’s side, but rather “on the side”.
Summit participants clearly defined the situation as a war between Russia and Ukraine and confirmed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders, including territorial waters.
The summit clearly stated that Zaporizhzhia NPP should be under the full sovereign control of Ukraine, and any threats or use of nuclear weapons are unacceptable.
Another blow to Putin is the demand for a summit on free navigation and access to the ports of the Black and Azov Seas and the inadmissibility of attacks on civilian port infrastructure and civilian ports.
The summit calls for the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of civilians and children to Ukraine.
In general, the summit became a platform on which a consolidated position was developed under international law regarding future negotiations between the participants in the war.
The day before, Putin, in a long speech into the void at a meeting in front of chairs filled with Russian diplomats, tried to shape the other pole of his vision of peace initiatives. The main purpose of the Russian dictator’s speeches was to not forget about him. To flood the information space with his bravura and at the same time worthless statements, once again to drive through the brains of the Western audience, and in the end, to play “Chapaev” in the chess game, which he loses and every next step he takes only worsens his position.
Despite the Orwellian set of arguments as to why Ukraine should give up a fifth of its territory without a fight (and this even though, in the third year of the war, taking another landing in the Donbas turns into an extremely difficult task with huge losses), Putin cries out for the need for negotiations.
Its strategic position is deteriorating every day not only outside the country. Western sanctions are no longer being slowly dragged on but are hitting with all their might, and the economy, which has been put on a war footing, is leading the country to collapse.
Putin’s constant whispering about democratic elections in Donbas and the right to referendums on secession make his position in 85 “old” federal entities shaky. If the residents of Donbas have the right to a referendum in Russian democracy, then the Bashkirs, Tatars, Yakuts, Buryats and hundreds of other nations enslaved by Russia and conquered territories certainly have the same right. Constant apparent anti-colonial rhetoric simultaneously undermines and will continue to threaten Putin’s position in post-colonial countries. After all, how can you support a country that is the champion in terms of the number of nations it has conquered, enslaved, and colonized?
Putin’s intention to form the other extreme of peace proposals has failed. After another introduction of sanctions, even traditional allies turn away from him as if from the plague.
An even bigger problem for Putin was that in trying to trade Ukraine’s future (by banning it from joining NATO or the European Union), he missed how Ukraine has become a real ally today, having already concluded 17 bilateral security agreements. Not only with 14 European countries but also with the USA, Canada and Japan. These agreements are saturated with real content, military, economic, and diplomatic assistance, and support for Ukraine in achieving a just peace.
In the conditions when it becomes an unthinkable task to send rubles abroad, and from the autumn only wooden calculators of our own production, Chinese software and pirated demo copies will work from complex software, long-term agreements with Ukraine, calculated for at least a decade, are not only about diplomatic phrases of support, but real tanks, planes, ammunition, intelligence and finances that will flow predictably, steadily, regardless of the need to reach a consensus in a campaign with Russian rats.
Putin is intensifying the war in Ukraine as much as possible to at least snatch back something as soon as possible and crawl away to lick his wounds. Because with the current extensiveness of battles for the landings, the resource will last maximum for a year and a half. And then there is a hole in the sky and a completely demilitarized country. At the same time, Ukraine demonstrates that it is ready for long-term resistance and planned systematic support of allies. Even at the peace summit, the most remote prospect of future negotiations with the participation of the aggressor country was outlined.
Putin, through the mouths of his allies, insisted on possible negotiations “when the appropriate circumstances arise”, trying to take advantage of the break in Western arms supplies and knowingly attacking Ukraine, now he cries for the need to lift sanctions and negotiate based on existing realities. Because he understands that every next step will only complicate his position. The Chinese comrade would rather choose to calmly wait for the corpse of a Russian ally to float by than get stuck in a sanctions frenzy that will destroy the export-oriented economy and put an end to the prospects of world leadership in the future.
Therefore, Ukraine and its allies are calmly waiting for Putin’s new moves, which will only worsen his position in the conditions of the zugzwang. These steps are not enough. To fly to dear comrades in North Korea and Iran, on the way visiting Sakhu-Yakutia (a region that will be one of the first to separate from the empire as a result of a referendum based on the UN charter without the dominion’s consent, as he said at a meeting with his diplomats) and for the hundred thousandth time to ask for a bow to Heaven, receiving assurances of support and the traditional “there is no money, but you hold on.”
It is not known whether the regional committee of Kremlin elders will endure for a long time and calmly contemplate how everything is destroyed, earned by “hard work”. The defeat threatens to leave him as an orphan because in the Russian tradition Akela, who missed, does not live long…
