Ukraine war: Foreign Minister says Kyiv wants peace summit 'by end of February'
Ukraine's foreign minister said his nation wants a UN-backed peace summit to end the war early in 2023, but only if Russia has faced a war crime tribunal first.
Dmytro Kuleba made the comments in a new interview, telling journalists the peace summit should be held by the end of February at the United Nations, with Secretary-General António Guterres as mediator.
But Kuleba doesn't anticipate Russia taking part, which makes it hard to foresee the devastating invasion ending soon.
“Every war ends in a diplomatic way," the foreign minister said. “Every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”
The Associated Press interview offered a glimpse at Ukraine's vision of how the war with Russia could one day end, although any peace talks would be months away and highly contingent on complex international negotiations.
Kuleba said that Russia must face a war crimes tribunal before his country directly talks with Moscow. He said, however, that other nations should feel free to engage with Russians, as happened before a grain agreement between Turkey and Russia.
Ukraine's top diplomat said during the interview at the Foreign Ministry that Ukraine will do whatever it can to win the war in 2023 -- and that he was "absolutely satisfied" with the results of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the US before Christmas, and revealed that the US government had made a special plan to get the Patriot missile battery ready to be operational in the country in less than six months. Usually, the training takes up to a year.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that no Ukrainian peace plan can succeed without taking into account “the realities of today that can’t be ignored” -- a reference
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