Ukraine continues its efforts to rally the support of the countries of the South for its peace initiative. After Copenhagen in June, it is in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that around thirty countries are invited on Saturday August 5 and Sunday August 6 for new talks around the ten-point formula drawn up by the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. , to end the war with Russia. Alongside the diplomatic and national security advisers of the Western allied countries of Kiev are expected those of G20 countries that remained neutral in the face of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, such as India, Brazil, and Africa. from South.
Moscow, which reunited the ranks of Africa around itself during the Russian-African summit organized at the end of July in Saint Petersburg, takes a dim view of the participation of countries from the South and part of the BRICS (Brazil , Russia, India, China, South Africa) to a meeting invited by Ukraine, to which it is not invited. The Kremlin believes that peace talks are only possible if Kyiv agrees “new realities”, namely its claims to the Ukrainian territories it occupies. Russia will monitor the planned meeting in Saudi Arabia, although it remains to be seen what the organizers intend to discuss, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, according to public news service TASS.
“The world has understood how Vladimir Putin works: the more you listen to him, the more he lies, so it’s better not to listen to him at all. Therefore, there is no need to discuss the terms of the peace agreement with him. We must form a common position without him, then present it to him,” said Abbas Galliamov, an independent Russian political consultant. “This is how Russia destroys its own ability to influence the discussion of an issue that concerns it, pushing itself to the margins of world politics”he adds.
Give pledges to the Americans
“It’s not good news for Putin if Mohammad bin Salman helps mobilize hesitant states in favor of Ukraine”, abounds Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World in Geneva. The decision of the Saudi crown prince, known as “MBS”, to organize this meeting is not however a questioning of the strategic partnership which binds him to Russia, in particular on oil. By committing himself to the Ukrainian file, he is above all seeking to give guarantees to the Americans, who have been burned by the Russo-Saudi oil agreement.
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