The Swiss government will host a two-day high-level conference in June aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine, it says, although Russia has made clear it will not take part in the initiative.
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Switzerland said in January it would host a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and has since held talks with the European Union, G7 member states and countries such as China and India to garner their support.
"There is currently sufficient international support for a high-level conference to launch the peace process," the Federal Council said in a statement.
The conference will be held June 15-16 at the Burgenstock resort in the canton of Nidwalden outside the city of Lucerne.
It will aim to create a framework favourable to a comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine as well as "a concrete roadmap for Russia's participation in the peace process".
The summit is expected to draw top government officials from dozens of countries, following on a plan laid out by Zelenskiy and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis in recent months.
"The first country that we spoke with - after Ukraine of course - was Russia, because a peace process cannot happen without Russia, even if it won't be there for the first meeting," Cassis told reporters on Wednesday in the Swiss capital Bern.
While Russia has said it is not against negotiations to end the war, Russian officials have said they will not take part in talks in Switzerland, a country they consider to have relinquished its neutrality with regard to the conflict.
Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has said the Swiss initiative is pointless without Russian participation.
"It has to be clear from the start that Russia - sooner or later - has to be there," Foreign Minister Cassis said.
"Now, it's not mandatory that it's there the first day. We could also imagine that on the first day, people might agree about how to better invite Russia."
"We have to agree: that's the backbreaking work ahead of us," he added.
China, a Russian ally, said last month it would consider taking part in the conference.
Swiss President Viola Amherd said there was no guarantee June's initiative would be a success and that it would not immediately yield a peace deal.
Cassis said formal invitations to take part in the conference would be issued to more than 100 countries this week.
In a telephone call, Zelenskiy and Amherd agreed to attract as many countries as possible to take part in the summit, the Ukrainian president's office said on Wednesday.
Swiss authorities have yet to disclose a full list of participants.
After two years of war, Russia holds just under a fifth of Ukraine's territory and accuses Ukraine's allies of using it as a theatre to fight Russia.
On the battlefront, Russian forces launched deadly attacks on Wednesday in Kharkiv and Odesa regions, killing seven people and injuring many more, officials said.
In Odesa district in the south, a missile attack killed four people, including a 10-year-old girl, and injured 14 more, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said.
In northeastern Kharkiv region, which has been subjected to intensified Russian attacks on cities and energy sites in recent weeks, a strike on a pharmacy killed a 14-year-old girl and two women in the village of Lyptsi, regional Governor Oleh Synehubov said.
On the Russian side of the border, Roman Starovoyt, governor of Kursk region, said three people, two of them children, were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on a car.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts from either side.
with AP
Australian Associated Press
