Lavrov reported Russia's reluctance to participate in Zelensky's new "peace summit"

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on 30 December that Russia was not going to participate in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's new "peace summit", whose term of office expired on 20 May.

"I have clarified many times that we are not going to take part in the 'peace summit' even if we receive an invitation," he emphasized in an interview with TASS.

According to the minister, Russia has stopped following the speeches of Zelensky, who "constantly states something."

"It is impossible to guess what Zelensky's public admission of his inability to regain lost territories by force <...> We believe not statements but facts, especially when it comes to the Kiev regime," he commented.

Lavrov is convinced that since the Kiev government has not yet canceled the idea of restoring the "territorial integrity of Ukraine" within the 1991 borders and withdrawing Russian troops from these borders, they want to invite Russia to the second "peace summit" only to present it with "some kind of ultimatum."

Earlier, on 16 December, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said that a new summit on the Ukrainian conflict was being prepared. He also added that Switzerland remained "cautiously optimistic" about finding solutions to the Ukrainian issue because of the signals coming from the United States and the future administration of the country's president-elect Donald Trump.

On December 13, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg allowed the conflict in Ukraine to end in the coming months. According to him, the US president-elect is capable of decisive action on conflict resolution.

On December 4, the WSJ newspaper, citing a source, reported that the Ukrainian side is ready to start negotiations on a sustainable peace with Russia. The piece noted that "conflict-weary Ukraine" is ready for a ceasefire if it is allowed to join NATO.

In mid-June, the first summit on Ukraine was held in Bürgenstock, Switzerland. The Russian Federation was not invited to participate in it. More than a dozen countries refused to sign the final document of the meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin named the conditions for negotiations on Ukraine at a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14. Thus, Ukrainian troops should leave the territories of the new regions of the Russian Federation and Kiev should give up the idea of NATO integration.

The last round of negotiations took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. They lasted about three hours. Later, Kiev officially refused contacts with Moscow. On October 4 of the same year, the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on the impossibility of holding talks with Putin was put into effect.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.