On Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a diplomatic push toward peace in Ukraine and said he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed that Russia should attend a future peace summit.
“I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace,” Scholz said. “There will certainly be a further peace conference, and the president and I agree that it must be one with Russia present.”
Scholz’s comments mark a rare call for peace in Ukraine from a leader of a NATO country. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been consistently calling for an end to the fighting, but he’s been out of step with other NATO and European leaders.
Back in June, Ukraine organized a conference in Switzerland that was billed as a “peace summit,” but Russia was not invited to attend, so it didn’t make any progress toward a ceasefire.
After the Switzerland conference, Zelensky began saying that Russia should attend the next summit, which marked a break from his previous position that he wouldn’t hold any talks with Moscow until a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, which was a non-starter.
Russia expressed interest in holding peace talks, but then Ukraine launched its invasion of Ukraine on August 6. Following the attack, Russian officials dismissed the idea of peace talks and suggested Zelensky’s earlier comments about inviting Russia to a summit were a bluff.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled that he was softening his position, saying Moscow “never refused” to negotiate. But there’s still no sign that a peace summit involving Russian and Ukrainian officials is being planned, and the US isn’t expected to support any efforts toward peace, at least before the November election.
Throughout the war, the only time a real peace deal was on the table was back in March and April of 2022. But the US and NATO discouraged Ukraine from signing an agreement and promised to support its fight against Russia.
This article was originally featured at Antiwar.com and is republished with permission.
