Kuleba: Summit in Switzerland becomes ‘leap to peace,’ but still with very difficult path ahead
By holding a Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, prerequisites were created for the Russian Federation to negotiate in the future not in the language of ultimatums, but in good faith, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
In an interview that was aired on the telethon on Thursday, Kuleba was asked if the Peace Summit could be the start of peace talks. The minister replied that “the Summit was a leap towards peace.”
“This is not peace yet. There is a long way ahead,” the Foreign Minister said.
He recalled that from 2014 to 2022, Ukraine held about 200 rounds of negotiations with the Russian Federation, and the Russians “destroyed the process in every possible way.” According to Kuleba, “we have learned this lesson.”
“And the President has said from the very beginning of his presidency that he will not repeat these mistakes. And we don't repeat them. We formed a coalition, and the Russian Federation saw that its ultimatums did not work, that Ukraine enjoys the support not only of Europe and America, and that Ukraine has a much larger number of countries on its side. Therefore, we created the prerequisites for this summit for the Russian Federation to negotiate not in the language of ultimatums, but in good faith. And so that these ultimatums do not occur at the expense of Ukraine's concessions,” he said.
Kuleba stressed that “there is still a very difficult path ahead.”
“I want to be honest with everyone, because, as they say, the deeper you go into something, the bigger the problem get. There will be many more problematic issues. But we have no other way but to solve them - for the sake of victory and the renewal of our country,” the minister added.