Peace in Ukraine cannot “be a capitulation” of the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday at a peace summit in Switzerland. “We are all committed to building a lasting peace. And as several of you have mentioned, such a peace cannot be a Ukrainian capitulation,” he said in English.
“There is an attacker and a victim.” “This war is a global problem,” he said, in unison with many other leaders. This two-day summit brings together more than 50 heads of state and government, with the aim of charting a path towards peace in Ukraine.
“Increase pressure to obtain a truce on the Russian side”
Addressing the leaders, the French president stressed: “No one in this room is at war with Russia, but everyone wants a lasting peace, that is to say a peace that respects international rules and which restores Ukraine’s sovereignty. He insisted that one of the summit’s priorities was to “secure the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”, and to reject “any complacency regarding attacks targeting targets and infrastructure in Ukraine “, adding that these were “war crimes”.*
“I think it is extremely important to increase pressure in this context to obtain a truce from the Russian side,” he said. The French president also suggested “that at the same time, we all build a follow-up together in order to expand the circle of countries joining our efforts.” This will make it possible, he explained, to “avoid a great division of the world and to avoid, I would say, being tempted by other initiatives”, while emphasizing that it was not a question of ” compete” between the different proposals aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine.
This is clearly “about building what should be a set of key demands from the global community that we could put on the table vis-à-vis Russia,” he continued. On Sunday, three subjects will be discussed in working groups during the summit: nuclear safety, freedom of navigation and food security, and humanitarian aspects, in particular the fate of Ukrainian children deported to Russia.