Russian ambassador to Switzerland Sergei Garmonin (Photo: WATSON)

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Switzerland to organize a peace summit.

Neutral Switzerland acted as a broker to resolve international conflicts in the past.

Russian ambassador Sergei Garmonin, however, told Swiss paper SonntagsZeitung that a Ukraine peace summit without Moscow’s participation would be “doomed to fail”.

Garmonin said Zelensky’s 10‑point peace plan was not a basis for entering into dialogue because it contained a series of ultimatums against Russia. “You can’t talk to Russia in the language of ultimatums”, he said.

He said Russian demands to be taken into account include that “Ukraine must become a neutral, non-aligned country without nuclear weapons that respects the human rights and freedoms of all citizens and national groups on its territory”.