MOSCOW, June 14. /TASS/. It is impossible to reach a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict without talking to Russia, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Foreign Ministry’s senior staff.
Commenting on the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland, the head of state said: "I would like to emphasize: it is impossible to reach a peaceful solution in Ukraine and in general on global European security without Russia’s participation, without honest and responsible dialogue." "So far, the West has ignored our interests. Meanwhile, while forbidding Kiev to negotiate, it is constantly calling on us to negotiate somehow. It is just ridiculous," the president added.
He recalled that the so-called high-level international conference on peace in Ukraine is scheduled to be held in Switzerland right after the G7 summit. "This is the group of those who actually ignited the conflict in Ukraine with their policies. What the organizers of the meeting in Switzerland are proposing is just another trick to divert everyone's attention, to swap the cause and effect of the Ukrainian crisis, to lead the discussion down the wrong path and, to some extent, to once again highlight the appearance of legitimacy of the current executive authorities in Ukraine," the Russian leader continued.
According to him, it is clear that no "fundamental issues" that underlie the current crisis of international security and stability are going to be discussed in Switzerland, despite all the attempts to make the agenda of the conference more or less decent. "We can clearly expect that everything will be reduced to talks of a demographic nature and a new set of accusations against Russia," Putin stressed.
The Swiss conference
The Swiss authorities plan to hold the conference on Ukraine on June 15-16 at the Burgenstock resort. Bern has invited more than 160 delegations, including those from the G7, the G20, and BRICS. On June 10, the authorities announced that 90 countries and organizations had responded to the invitation. Representatives of China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and a number of other states will not come to Burgenstock. Meanwhile, according to some media, the number of potential participants has already dropped to 78.
According to the Swiss authorities, Russia has not been invited. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that holding this event is a "road to nowhere" and Moscow does not see that the West wants to enter into fair negotiations. At the same time, Russia has repeatedly stressed that Moscow has never refused to settle the conflict with Kiev through peace talks.