Photo: Collected
Russia does not count on Switzerland's efforts toward a peaceful settlement in the Ukraine conflict as the country has long lost its neutrality, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday (2 March), adding that he had told this to his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis.
"We do not rely heavily on Switzerland's services. Switzerland has traditionally been a venue and a country that has helped in every possible way to reach compromises, agreements in negotiations due to its neutrality. It lost its neutrality long ago I said this frankly to my colleague [Cassis] when we were talking to him in New York," Lavrov told a briefing.
On January 15, Swiss President Viola Amherd said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked Bern to host a peace summit on Ukraine. Kiev wants to hold summits to approve Zelenskyy's "peace formula," the Ukrainian presidency explained. Cassis later stressed that Russia needed to be part of any peace process related to the Ukraine conflict.
Messenger/Mumu
