A meeting in Switzerland
The “ Ukraine Peace Summit ” held on June 15 and 16, 2024, in Bürgenstock, Switzerland has ended. Despite the hopes invested by kyiv in the event, only a distorted and inaudible echo of the ideas initially formulated in ten points by Ukrainian President Zelensky, months ago, saw the light of day.
Invitations to the “peace summit” were sent by its organizer, Switzerland, to more than 160 countries, with the hope of uniting the “ world majority ” behind Zelensky's positions. The obvious goal was to organize a broad isolation of Russia and unite a large number of states behind the NATO banner.
Throughout the process of organizing the event, worrying signs emerged and everything seemed to indicate that the expected scale of the summit would be significantly different from that expected by kyiv. Hopes came up against a reality: almost half of the targeted countries simply ignored the invitation. They ignored it despite the insistence and pressure exerted on them by Western powers.
Ultimately, only 92 countries, including 1/3 NATO members and 1/3 direct NATO satellite countries, sent their representatives to Switzerland. That being said, a significant portion of countries were not represented by heads of state or government, but by those whose functions sometimes seem almost anecdotal, given the framework and the expected level of the discussion. Notably, instead of its prime minister, Australia sent its disability insurance minister – a person more or less unknown even in Australia – to the Bürgenstock “ summit ”. Officially, in diplomatic language, only international meetings of heads of state and/or government are qualified as “ summits ”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who initially planned to be present at the "summit" for peace on Ukraine, and who ultimately refused to go like so many others, clearly formulated everyone's position. the “absent”: the conference, organized to discuss only the initiative proposed by kyiv, does not allow any free discussion that could lead to a conclusion that would not be the one predetermined even before the start of the event. “ It is international law that must be restored and deepened, and not the creation of blocs to wage war ,” Petro concluded, clearly highlighting the real objectives of the meeting in Switzerland.
The absence of Russia
As soon as Kiev announced the idea of organizing a peace summit – and this with the categorical refusal of Russia's presence – it was already clear that it would mainly be a meeting moreover from the “ Atlanticist ” camp accompanied by the vassal countries which will have no right to express a position which is not that prescribed by the foreign powers which dominate them.
Likewise, obviously and known in advance, any meeting “ for peace ” without the presence of the protagonist will absolutely not give any result that would bring closer the day of cessation of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Without waiting for the rest of the scenario, Moscow described this kyiv initiative as a farce which will not have the slightest impact on the fighting.
Kiev's real goals in organizing the “ peace summit ” have never been other than the condemnation of the Russian Federation by the world majority. It is clear that the objective has failed. Noticing in real time the great failure in kyiv's approach and making an attempt to mitigate it, the senior representatives of the Atlanticist bloc began to speak of the need for a new peace conference, this time in the presence representatives from Moscow. Notably, on the evening of the first day of the meeting, June 15, Swiss President Viola Amherd described Kiev's intention to negotiate a peace agreement without Russia's participation as unthinkable: “ We understand well that A peace process without Russia is unthinkable. A long-term solution must include both parties .”
The mountain gave birth to a mouse
For the Ukrainian government, the only objective that was really worth organizing a “ summit on peace in Ukraine ” was the one that Zelensky outlined at the beginning of the process of organizing the event: to bring together the heads of state and government of the majority of countries on the planet and have them unanimously sign a declaration of strong condemnation of Russia and the world's call for Russia to leave the territories considered Ukrainian since 1991.
Of the ten points that the Ukrainian side wanted to address during the meeting and include in the resulting anti-Russian resolution, only three, the most neutral towards Russia, were accepted and retained for discussion by the participants. kyiv, supported by NATO countries, had to accept this serious regression in its hopes, otherwise a rejection of the entire initiative by rare participating countries deemed to be independent of the West could have occurred. .
Once the “summit” was over – the “ Joint Communiqué Concerning the Peace Framework ” came into being. Despite the great sacrifice of 2/3 of the main points of the Ukrainian program, 12 countries out of the 92 countries present in Switzerland – South Africa, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates United States, Thailand, Libya, Mexico, Armenia, Bahrain and the Vatican – refused to sign it.
Speaking of the 80 signatory countries, it is also necessary to put into perspective the global representativeness of these States, of which the main role of an entire party at the “ summit ” was to make up their number. Of all the 80 countries in question, more than a quarter are only very small countries whose total populations are less than, for example, 10% of the population of a single country, such as Brazil. The five smallest signatory countries of the press release: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Palau and San Marino have a total population, the figure of which is less than 1.5% of the population of the city of Moscow alone.
Not wanting to make a fool of himself, not only did American President Joe Biden refuse to participate in the so-called “ summit ” for peace in Ukraine, but even his Vice-President Kamala Harris, sent to Switzerland to make up the numbers, took her arrangements to leave him only a few hours after his start , making it clear that more important matters awaited him in Washington.
In summary
How can we summarize the results of the peace meeting held in Bürgenstock? Here is what residents of the city where it took place say, collected by journalist Aylin Erol from the Swiss media Watson : “ It’s bullshit! » say some; “ Russia will not come. So what does all this add up to? ", say the others, adding: " Nothing, except even more rich tourists who will storm the Bürgenstock in the future ."
The attempt to draw emerging countries into a coalition against Russia, which was Zelensky's goal, failed. This “ summit ” will therefore have been a non-event.
More worrying
It is a safe bet that Western political strategists had foreseen this failure. NATO no longer relies much on the Ukrainian army, but has absolutely no intention of putting an end to the conflict; on the contrary, it is engaged in headlong flight.
Ukrainian drones hit Russian radars intended to detect possible attacks by enemy ballistic missiles, 1500 and 1800 km from the Ukrainian border. Even the White House says it is concerned because it is an essential element of Russian nuclear deterrence, how can we imagine that such strikes were launched without the Pentagon being aware. And how can we prevent the Russians from seeing this as preparations for a future hostile action? It is clear that the Russians do not hesitate to systematically bomb Ukrainian territory, so why would the Ukrainians not retaliate?
But these radars are not directly involved in the current operation. So, are we looking to test the stages of the next nuclear escalation?
In conclusion
From the beginning, the Communist Revolutionary Party has denounced the war that the imperialist powers are waging on Ukrainian soil. The Western imperialist bloc confronts, more and more directly, another imperialist bloc, which notably includes Russia and China.
To say this is not to hide the fact that there are Nazis in Ukraine, that they are celebrated in Western imperialist countries, that there are lots of Bandera avenues in Ukraine, but that it is not Putin who will settle this question. The end of the USSR is the main cause of this confrontation, and Putin played his part in it. Then he speaks on behalf of Russian capitalists, not the people who fought Nazism.
Russia, for us, is not fighting for a multipolar world which does not and will not exist outside of socialism, but to appropriate wealth, to take its share of the pie that the West does not want it to take. to leave.
The escalation announced in particular by Macron is rhetoric, but not only that. We know that EU soldiers (including probably French) have been there for a long time. We must compensate for the shortcomings of the Ukrainian army, which is demoralized and unable to use certain equipment. The radar episode, which we discussed above, shows that NATO is testing Russia's possible responses. A test that could prove catastrophic against a first-rate nuclear power.
On the contrary, the Communist Revolutionary Party pleads for a ceasefire and real negotiations, not like the Swiss pants. And, for there to be real negotiations, Russia would first have to be present, then it would be neutral states, and not NATO, which sponsor these negotiations.
The only way to stop the butchery is to fight imperialism, that is, not to choose sides in an imperialist war. “ We believe we are dying for the homeland, we are dying for the industrialists. » said Anatole France, about a peak of imperialist wars, the First World War.