Russia says it will take no part in follow-up to 'peace summit'

22/9/2024 6:24

        Russia will take no part in any follow-up to the Swiss-organized "peace summit" held in June as the process amounts to "fraud," Foreign Ministry
        spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.
        
        Russia was not invited to the June meeting, attended by delegations from more than 90 countries, and dismissed its deliberations as meaningless without Moscow's participation.
        
        Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he hopes to organise a follow-up meeting by the end of the year with Russia attending.
        
        "This process itself has nothing to do with a settlement," Zakharova wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "It is another manifestation of fraud by the Anglo-Saxons and their Ukrainian puppets."
        
        She said Russia was ready to discuss "truly serious proposals" that take account of the "situation on the ground" - an oblique reference to Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions, though without fully occupying any of them.
        
        Ukraine and its Western backers were "not thinking about peace," she said, citing Ukraine's incursion into southern Russia's Kursk region, launched last month, and to Zelenskiy's persistent appeals for long-range Western weaponry.