Russia bombed the Vivat printing plant in Kharkiv with S-300 missiles on May 23. Seven employees died. Faced with the rubble of the building, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a video this Sunday asking the international community to increase its military support for Ukraine. The president has also spoken for the first time about an issue that has made headlines this week in Ukraine: the possible absence of Joe Biden, president of the United States, at the Peace Summit called for June 15 in Switzerland.
The Bloomberg agency reported on May 23 that neither Biden nor his vice president, Kamala Harris, plan to attend the meeting in which more than 80 countries have confirmed their attendance to discuss Ukrainian proposals to end the war. Bloomberg specified that the US president has committed to a fundraising event in California on those June dates for his election campaign. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, will attend, as announced by Zelensky, and Olaf Scholz is also expected. The German chancellor told the magazine on May 14 Sternthat a possible peace process will not be discussed in depth in Switzerland and the efforts of kyiv’s allies will focus on guaranteeing the export of grain, the security of Ukrainian nuclear plants and the exchange of prisoners with Russia.
There are other reasons for Biden’s possible absence, and it is the Democratic Party’s intention that the war in Ukraine not take center stage in the election campaign. This has been reported by media such as Politicalwhich, citing White House sources, has assured that Ukraine will be a weapon for Republican Donald Trump to attack Biden, if he is finally a candidate in the November elections, arguing that it has wasted billions of dollars in a war that is impossible to win cost of ignoring the real problems of Americans.
“I address the world leaders who are still on the sidelines of the Peace Summit preparations, President Biden, the leader of the United States, and President Xi [Jinping], leader of China,” Zelensky said from the destroyed printing press in Kharkov, “we do not want the United Nations charter to be burned like these books. I hope you don’t either. Please support the Peace Summit with your leadership and your presence in person.” China is expected to send representatives of its diplomatic corps, as has happened in previous meetings in which Ukrainian peace proposals have been discussed, but at no time has Xi’s presence been contemplated.
The Russian authorities consider that international meetings to debate the terms of ending the war are useless without Moscow’s participation. Zelensky’s so-called Peace Formula is a decalogue of proposals that are difficult to accept by the invader: among others, it includes the return of all occupied territories and the expulsion of all Russian troops from Ukraine, the creation of an international court to prosecute their war crimes and establish mechanisms by which Russia will be forced to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Kharkiv massacre
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Zelensky’s video was broadcast a day after Russian aerial bombs destroyed a hypermarket in the center of Kharkiv. The death toll amounts to at least 14 people, in addition to fifty injured. The second largest city in Ukraine is suffering constant bombing by the Russian Air Force this spring, in a campaign of terror that is leaving dozens of civilians dead day and night. The Russian harassment coincides with the offensive that Kremlin troops have launched since May 10 north of the city, 25 kilometers away. The reinforcements that have arrived in the area in the last two weeks have allowed Ukraine to contain the invader’s push, but Zelensky has warned that a new concentration of thousands of Russian soldiers is being organized 90 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
kyiv’s diplomacy is focused this May on convincing its NATO allies to lift the veto they maintain against their weapons—howitzers and missiles—being used against targets on Russian territory. Much of the Russian offensive on Kharkiv is based on its artillery, drones and aircraft operating from Russian soil. The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said on May 24 in The Economistthat he is in favor of giving the green light to the Ukrainian Armed Forces to hit the Russian army on the other side of the border with Western weaponry: “With the fighting in Kharkiv, deny Ukraine the possibility of using this weaponry against legitimate military targets in Russia “It makes it very difficult for them to defend themselves.”
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