Saudi Arabia has launched a diplomatic initiative to find a peaceful solution to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has killed thousands of people and displaced millions more since Russia invaded the country in 2022.
The kingdom is hosting a two-day summit in Jeddah, where senior officials from about 40 countries, including China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, are expected to discuss a set of common principles to end the conflict.
The summit, which began on Saturday, does not include Russia, which has rejected Ukraine’s 10-point peace formula that calls for respect for its territorial integrity and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the areas that Moscow claims to have annexed. The Kremlin said it would “keep an eye” on the meeting, but did not express any interest in joining the talks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the wide range of countries represented in the talks, saying that the fate of millions of people around the world depended on how fast the world moved to implement the peace formula. He said he hoped that the initiative would lead to a “peace summit” of world leaders this autumn to endorse the principles.