Taoiseach Simon Harris among world leaders to attend Swiss resort for Ukraine peace summit

Ukraine s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in Switzerland for peace summit

TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS will be among the world leaders to take part in a Peace Summit for Ukraine this weekend.

The two-day summit in Switzerland begins today and close to 90 counties will attend, with most delegates at being heads of state.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will join the gathering at the Burgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne.

Some 100 delegations including European bodies and the United Nations will be on hand.

The summit aims to develop plans for the first steps towards peace in Ukraine, with Russia being notably absent from the conference.

Meanwhile, China is sitting out the conference.

A spokesperson for Harris said the conference will discuss efforts to initiate a peace process for Ukraine which supports its sovereignty and political independence.

The spokesperson added that discussions will centre on the need to uphold international law, as well as global concerns like nuclear safety, food security and humanitarian issues.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s summit, Harris said Russia is showing “no genuine interest in efforts for peace”.

He added that Ireland “must vindicate Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence”.

Harris also said that the “simple truth” is that “Russia has illegally invaded Ukraine”.

“It continues to subject its people to brutal and unrelenting attack. Russia must, and will, be held accountable,” said Harris.

Harris also said he will reiterate to Zelenskyy the Ireland’s “steadfast support for Ukraine and our willingness to continue to do all we can to assist the people of Ukraine in their heroic fight in defence of their sovereignty and independence for however long it takes”.

Who will show up, and who will not, has become one of the key stakes of a meeting that critics say will be useless without the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

US vice president Kamala Harris will attend, while Turkey and Saudi Arabia have sent their foreign ministers.

Key developing countries like Brazil, an observer at the event, India and South Africa will be represented at lower levels.

China, which backs Russia, is joining scores of countries that are sitting out the conference.

Beijing says any peace process needs to have the participation of both Russia and Ukraine, and has floated its own ideas for peace.

Zelenskyy recently led a diplomatic push to draw in participants.

Russian troops who now control nearly a quarter of Ukrainian land in the east and south have made some territorial gains in recent months.

When talk of a Swiss-hosted peace initiative began last summer, Ukrainian forces had recently regained large swathes of territory, notably near the cities of southern Kherson and northern Kharkiv.

Against the battlefield backdrop and diplomatic strategising, summit organisers have presented three agenda items.

They include nuclear safety, such as at the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia power plant; humanitarian assistance and exchange of prisoners of war; and global food security, which has been disrupted at times because of impeded shipments through the Black Sea.

That to-do list, encapsulating some of the least controversial issues, is well short of proposals and hopes laid out by Zelenskyy in a 10-point peace formula in late 2022.

Putin’s government, meanwhile, wants any peace deal to be built around a draft agreement negotiated in the early phases of the war that included provisions for Ukraine’s neutral status and limits on its armed forces, while delaying talks about Russia-occupied areas.

Ukraine’s push over the years to join the Nato military alliance has rankled Moscow.

With much of the world’s focus recently on the war in Gaza and national elections in 2024, Ukraine’s backers want to return focus to Russia’s breach of international law and a restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The International Crisis Group, an advisory firm that works to end conflict, wrote this week that “absent a major surprise on the Burgenstock”, the event is “unlikely to deliver much of consequence”.

“Nonetheless, the Swiss summit is a chance for Ukraine and its allies to underline what the UN General Assembly recognised in 2022 and repeated in its February 2023 resolution on a just peace in Ukraine: Russia’s all-out aggression is a blatant violation of international law,” it said.

-With additional reporting from Press Association