Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 842

Here is the situation on Sunday, June 16, 2024.

Politics and diplomacy

• World leaders are gathering in Switzerland for the second day of a major peace conference to pursue a consensus on condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and underscoring concerns about the war’s human cost.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced hope of garnering international agreement around a proposal to end the war that he could present to Moscow.
• The circle of countries participating in the process of working towards a peace plan for Ukraine should be widened, French President Emmanuel Macron said during the opening of the peace summit.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described as “propaganda” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine effectively surrender before any peace talks.
• United States Vice President Kamala Harris announced another $1.5bn in assistance to Ukraine, as she pledged the US’s full support in backing Kyiv’s efforts to achieve “a just and lasting peace” in the face of the war with Russia.
• A draft of the final summit declaration reportedly refers to Russia’s invasion as a “war” – a label Moscow rejects – and calls for Ukraine’s control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and its Azov Sea ports to be restored, the Reuters news agency reported.
• White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters that Qatar had helped to mediate the return from Russia of 30 or more Ukrainian children to their families. Kyiv claims that as many as 20,000 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians since the war began.
• More than 90 countries are taking part in the summit, but China said it would boycott the event after Russia was frozen out of the process.

Fighting

The peace summit comes at a perilous moment for Ukraine on the battlefield, with Russian forces advancing against outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian units.

Near Ukraine’s embattled eastern front, hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough are nearly nil. “I’d like to hope that it will bring some changes in the future. But, as experience shows, nothing comes of it,” Maksym, a tank commander in the Donetsk region, told the AFP news agency.

Outside the peace summit venue in Switzerland, the wife of a Ukrainian soldier captured by Russia said she hoped the leaders could agree to “some exchange process for the prisoners of war”. “I want to see my husband,” Hanna, who fled her home in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol and now lives in Sweden, told AFP.

Meanwhile, Russian army defectors live in fear of reprisal from Moscow after abandoning their posts in the ongoing war with Ukraine. Many also feel abandoned by the West, as they do not have the necessary passports and only have documents allowing them to reach neighbouring Kazakhstan or Armenia.

World leaders pose for a photo at the opening ceremony of the summit on peace in Ukraine held in Stansstad near Lucerne, Switzerland [Denis Balibouse/Reuters]