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SINGAPORE — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Asia-Pacific countries to “show their commitment to peace” by attending a peace summit this month in Switzerland, as he warned that China is helping Russia derail the meeting.
“Russia, using Chinese influence on the region, using Chinese diplomats also, does everything to disrupt the peace summit,” Zelenskyy said during a press conference after delivering an address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
“I urge your leaders to join,” an impassioned Zelenskyy earlier told delegates at Asia’s premier defense summit. “By uniting against one war, we create for the world the real experience of overcoming any war, and of diplomacy that does work,” he said.
Zelenskyy said 106 countries had so far confirmed they would send representatives to the June 15-16 meeting in Switzerland, but added that the Kremlin and some of its allies — one of which he later identified as China — have been pressuring countries not to attend.
“Russia is trying to disrupt the peace summit,” Zelenskyy said. “What Russia is doing … it is now traveling around many countries in the world and threatening them with the blockade of agricultural goods, of food products, it is threatening to increase prices for energy, and it is pushing countries around the world so they are not present at the summit.”
He added: “And now there is information that certain states are assisting it.”
China has opted not to send a delegation to the Swiss summit, saying it would not attend because Russia wasn’t invited. Instead, Beijing has floated the idea of hosting its own peace conference with both Russia and Ukraine to be represented. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated last week that Moscow would be amenable to that idea.
On stage in Singapore, Zelenskyy said it was important for as many of the world’s leaders as possible to travel to Switzerland so that “the global majority” can agree “on the common understandings and steps” to help end the war in Ukraine, now in its third year after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The relevant parties will pass this to Russia, aiming for an outcome similar to the grain initiative,” Zelenskyy added, referring to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to allow Ukrainian grain exports to flow.
Zelenskyy, who has been criss-crossing the world in an effort to convince leaders to travel to Switzerland later this month, said he wanted to discuss three topics there: nuclear security, food security and the release of prisoners of war as well as the Ukrainian children who have been abducted by Russia.
Zelenskyy said he was “disappointed some world leaders have not yet confirmed their participation” at the Swiss summit. U.S. President Joe Biden, who is facing an election in November, has not confirmed his attendance, though he will be present at the G7 summit in Italy which takes place just before the Swiss gathering.
Zelenskyy held a series of meetings in Singapore, including with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, members of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Timor-Leste’s President José Ramos-Horta and Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto. Zelenskyy said in a statement in the early hours of Sunday that he had invited both Ramos-Horta and Prabowo to Switzerland, with the former accepting the invitation.
“Time is running out, and the children are growing up in their Putin-land, where they are taught to hate their homeland, and are lied to, being told they have no families while their loved ones wait for them at home in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president said on stage in Singapore, addressing the audience in English.
“I’m here to state that we’ve found a way to restore diplomacy,” said Zelenskyy in his speech. “We can make it real. Not so long ago, it seemed that the world would always be fragmented, but we showed that nations are capable of cooperation.”
Noting that nearly 100 missiles and drones hit Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy said: “No country could handle these alone. Everyone in the world who helps us with air defense systems … thank you so much,” he said, name-checking the United States, the Netherlands and Germany.
“Putin believes he is allowed to do anything. By the mid-2010s, Russia brought a war to our lands, a war that Ukraine never, never wanted, did not provoke,” Zelenskyy said.
Sitting in the front row were Austin, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, as well as European defense ministers. The Singaporean and Malaysian defense chiefs were on stage as Zelenskyy spoke.
