U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Jake Sullivan and Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland will meet with representatives of countries in the Global South that have not condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine to convince them to support Kyiv.
According to the Financial Times, citing knowledgeable sources, the talks will take place June 24–25 in Copenhagen. The list of participants in the meeting has not yet been approved and may change, but it is assumed that it will be attended by officials from India, Brazil and South Africa. Turkey and China may also be represented. The U.S. side will be joined at the talks by a high-ranking EU official.
According to one source, Kyiv insisted on the need for such a meeting. The diplomatic “offensive” begins after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the long-awaited large counterattack by the AFU is progressing slower than expected, the FT notes.
Because of the prospect of the war dragging on until next year, Kyiv and Washington are concerned that Ukraine’s camp of allies is not expanding. Therefore, the U.S. and the EU want to focus on the appeal of arguments to support Kyiv in this conflict.
During the Copenhagen meeting, the U.S. and the EU will try to enlist the support of developing countries. In an informal atmosphere, they will discuss the principles on which a peaceful settlement of the military conflict can be based. The meeting is expected to have a concrete result, one of the interlocutors stressed.
“We have little awareness of the extent to which the rest of the world is not convinced [of the need to support Ukraine]. They are not convinced. And it’s terrible to realize that”, an unnamed European official told the FT.
The countries of the Global South, unlike the developed world, have not condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine and have also refused to impose sanctions against Moscow. Moreover, Asian countries have increased trade with Russia, particularly in the field of energy. For example, India and China have become the largest buyers of Russian oil. South Africa, for its part, has stepped up military cooperation with Moscow.
On the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Moscow’s actions. The document was supported by 141 countries and only seven, including Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali and Eritrea, opposed it. Another 32 countries abstained in the vote, including China, India, Kazakhstan, Iran and Armenia.
