Ukrainian President Zelensky said that “history is being made”, with the aim of taking the first steps towards peace, although experts and critics do not expect great progress given that Russia and China are not participating
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More than 90 countries including Italy, together with representatives of international organizations, participate in the peace summit on Ukraine in Switzerland. On the second day of talks, in the resort of Bürgenstock near Lucerna, the working groups discuss nuclear safety, food safety and humanitarian assistance.
Nuclear safety has been a concern of European leaders since the first days of the Russian invasion. Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in March 2022 and still occupy it today.
It’s about the largest nuclear plant in Europe: Before the war it provided 30 percent of Ukraine’s electricity, but since September 2022 it has stopped working.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recalled that it has deployed a team of inspectors, who have been checking the nuclear site on a rotational basis since the end of 2022. But the fighting around the plant continues and the director of the agency, Rafael Grossiwarned in April of the imminent risk of a accident at the power plant if these “reckless” attacks do not cease immediately.
Grossi also said that “two years of war are weighing on the nuclear safety of the Zaporizhzhia power plant” and that “each of the IAEA’s seven pillars of nuclear security has been compromised.”
In February 2022 Russian forces also took control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plantthat of the catastrophic nuclear disaster of 1986, but they abandoned the site a month later.
Switzerland: Food security discussed at the peace summit on Ukraine
In February, the Center for Strategic and International Studies stated that “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in the largest increase in global food insecurity linked to military forces for at least a century”.
Ukraine, nicknamed the “breadbasket of Europe”, is in fact among the top three exporters of cereals in the world, but these supply lines have been drastically interrupted by the war.
Russian bombings have often often targeted the Ukrainian agricultural sectorproduction and storage infrastructures, and naval export routes on the Black Sea towards the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean almost completely interrupted.
War in Ukraine, damage to agriculture estimated at almost 40 billion euros
In July 2022, Turkey and the United Nations brokered an agreement between Russia and Ukraine that allowed the safe export of Ukrainian wheat through three Black Sea ports. The agreement included the export of almost 33 million tons of wheat, but in July last year Russia did not renew the pact.
Last March the European Union, the Kyiv School of Economics, the United Nations and the World Bank have estimated that the total cost of losses and damage to the Ukrainian agricultural sector amounted to 40.2 billion dollars (37.5 billion euros).
Zelensky in Switzerland at the peace summit: “History is being made”
At the first day of the summit, Saturday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky he said “history is being made” by taking the first steps towards peace, although experts and critics do not expect progress since Russia is not participating.
In a brief statement released to journalists together with the Swiss president Viola Amherd at the start of the summit, Zelensky called the meeting a success, saying they had managed “to bring back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop war and establish a just peace.”
Although Russia did not participate, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday wanted to lay out his conditions for ending the war, which Kiev called “absurd.”
Putin has told Russian diplomats and lawmakers that he will “immediately” order a ceasefire and begin negotiations if Ukraine gives up its bid to join NATO and begins to withdraw troops from four regions which Moscow illegally annexed in 2022.
