Russia blasts Davos meeting on Ukraine as 'failure'

MOSCOW

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Tuesday criticized as a "failure" the results of the fourth international meeting on Ukraine in the Copenhagen format held earlier in the day in the Swiss city of Davos.

The first meeting in the Copenhagen format was held in June 2023 in the capital of Denmark. Then the European Union, US and Ukraine invited countries of the so-called "Global South" for informal consultations to win over the non-Western world, which insists on solving the Ukrainian crisis at the negotiating table.

Zakharova said in a statement that although the number of countries that took part in the latest meeting increased from last time's 66 to 82, their participation cannot be called "meaningful" because they were presented at a low level and as observers.

The participants did not adopt a joint final document and the communique of the presidents contains a note that it does not reflect the views of all participants, she noted.

"Today, more and more countries of the Global South and East...openly say that without Russia, any discussion of the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis makes no sense," she emphasized.

She criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s initiative, which he called "a peace formula," saying many of its demands, including an ultimatum to Russia to pull out its forces to the 1991 borders and pay reparations, are "unrealistic."

"Kyiv does not hide that it requires the withdrawal of the army to arrange the genocide of the Russian population…Those who share this demand support criminal ethnic cleansing," she said.

Such meetings as were held in Davos hinder efforts aimed at eliminating the root causes of the crisis -- "the contemptuous disregard" by the West and Kyiv of Russia's security interests, she noted.

"A truly comprehensive, just and sustainable peaceful settlement is possible only by returning Ukraine to the origins of its statehood – a neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-weapon-free status with full respect for the rights and freedoms of citizens of all nationalities living on its territory. Unfortunately, these issues are not included in either the Zelenskyy formula or the agenda of the Copenhagen format meetings," she said.