At this point in the war, skepticism is great regarding the role of mediator that China can play between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict, but several European leaders yesterday encouraged President Xi Jinping to speak with Volodimir Zelensky as soon as possible to give credibility to his proposed peace plan, a proposal further clouded by suspicions that Beijing may be considering sending military aid to Moscow.
“I think it is crucial because China has a peace proposal with elements that may be helpful and others that may not be so much” to reach a negotiated solution, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, said upon his arrival at the European Council. “It is up to Zelenski and his team to commit to the proposals that are on the table, but the first thing to do is establish that communication,” he stressed.
The high representative for Foreign Affairs of the EU, Josep Borrell, said a few days ago that it requires “a great intellectual effort” to see the Chinese proposal as a peace plan and the commitment of the European Union, today, is to support the plan of 10 points presented by Zelenski on the anniversary of the start of the war and this is stated in the draft conclusions of the summit but they do not want to close doors to other contacts, rather to make clear the terms of hypothetical peace talks, starting with respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The first Western leader who will have the opportunity to speak with Xi about his initiative for China will be the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Spain and the People’s Republic of China, will travel to Beijing on the 30th and March 31. “It is important to know first-hand his position on peace in Ukraine and convey to him that it will be the Ukrainians who will establish the conditions for the start of that peace, when it arrives,” Sánchez said upon his arrival at the summit. In addition, “the most important thing is that a stable and lasting peace can be guaranteed”, which implies “respect for the United Nations bill of rights, the territorial integrity of Ukraine violated by Russia”, added Sánchez.
“Sending weapons to a country that is defending itself”, as Europe does with Ukraine, respects the United Nations charter, but “helping the aggressor is exactly the opposite and here clearly there is an aggressor and a victim,” the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who insisted that to achieve peace “Russia must return to its borders and agree to reparations” and made clear her skepticism about China’s mediating role by stressing that it is clear that Putin and Xi are “great friends”.
The European leaders reiterated yesterday to Zelensky, with whom they spoke by videoconference while he was returning by train from visiting areas of the war front, that they will support Ukraine “as long as it takes” and recalled the decisions taken since his visit to Brussels in February, especially the joint purchases of ammunition to send to Kyiv one million artillery shells within a year, starting with donating the national reserves. The Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-seven agreed on Monday to dedicate 2,000 million euros to these operations and is currently debating to provide the European Fund for Peace with 3,500 million euros more to finance the acquisition of military material.
Zelensky welcomed the support but warned leaders that delays in shipping long-range missiles and fighter jets (which should be “more modern” than the Soviet-era MiG-29s received so far from Slovakia) reduce the the Ukrainian army’s ability to protect the population at a critical moment in the war and actually prolong the conflict. The Ukrainian president asked European leaders to adopt more sanctions against Russia but there is nothing on the table of the Twenty-seven in this regard.
The Kremlin is actually trying to achieve the lifting of some Western sanctions in the framework of the negotiations for the signing of a new agreement that allows the export of cereals from Ukraine, a personal initiative of the Secretary General of the Nations, António Guterres, who yesterday participated in person at the European Council and briefed leaders on the critical situation of global food security. The European sanctions against Belarusian fertilizers, adopted in 2021 as a result of the diversion of a Ryanair plane in which a critical journalist was traveling, are in the spotlight and the Twenty-seven are negotiating a possible exception to remove arguments from Moscow about the effects Western sanctions, but given the concertation between Russia and Belarus in Ukraine, several countries oppose any relaxation of the punishment.
