Did Saudi summit move the dial on Ukraine-Russia peace deal?

The involvement of China in talks aimed at securing a lasting peace in Ukraine have been hailed as a major diplomatic coup for hosts Saudi Arabia, and potentially significant in bringing Russia to the negotiating table.

The summit, held in the Saudi city of Jeddah over the weekend, was attended by senior officials from more than 40 countries including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and the US, as well as the EU and other Nato members.

Russia was not invited and its deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told state media on Sunday that the meeting was “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilise the Global South behind a 10-point peace plan set out by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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What did the papers say?

China’s decision to join the talks “signals possible shifts in Beijing’s approach but not a U-turn in its support for Moscow”, reported Reuters.

While Chinese officials declined to join discussions in Denmark in June, the news agency said “it feels far more comfortable joining the effort in Saudi Arabia, even if Russia is not present and Ukraine is pushing its own plan”.

The presence of Beijing was “seen as a coup for Kyiv”, said the Financial Times (FT), “and became the focus of the event among participants”.

China is seen as crucial to any future peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Beijing unveiled a “no limits” partnership with Russia before Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbour, which it has refused to condemn.

However, said the FT, Beijing has “remained guarded on the trajectory of relations between the two powers”. Last month, the paper reported China’s President Xi Jinping had warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, against using nuclear weapons.

The attendance of four members of the so-called BRICS group – Brazil, India, China and South Africa – who all have “close ties to Russia” was also notable, Radio Free Europe reported.

If the involvement of China is seen as the “big diplomatic prize”, agreed The Guardian, the summit also allowed Riyadh to demonstrate its growing “mediator role not just on regional issues but on the global stage”, said Al-Monitor.

It is not clear whether Saudi Arabia, which has sought to maintain relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, sees itself as a peace broker vis-à-vis Ukraine, Gerald Feierstein, a former US ambassador to Yemen and director of the Arabian Peninsula Affairs Program at the Middle East Institute, told the news site. “Instead, this is most likely a chance to balance [Riyadh’s] interests and reduce US and Western pressure regarding their relations with Russia”.

It also presents the Saudi regime with a “chance to repair strained relations with its allies”, said The Guardian, “especially the US in view of the war in Yemen and the 2018 murder of the Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi”.

What next?

While the Saudi-backed summit “brought little in the way of concrete steps to stop the war or reverse Russia’s territorial gains”, said Bloomberg, the “most tangible outcome” was a plan to form working groups under various points of Zelenskyy’s 10-point “peace formula”.

These cover food supply, prisoner release, environmental and nuclear security as well as more problematic areas for Moscow such as the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of all Russian troops, and accountability for those responsible for the invasion.

Zelenskyy and European officials hope the weekend’s positive talks will form the basis for a “peace summit” based on Ukraine’s framework, to be attended by world leaders and hopefully taking place before the end of the year.

The former Russian president and prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy head of Russia’s national security council, said on Sunday that Moscow had to be included in talks for any proposal to work, adding in a Telegram post: “This was not there.”

Speaking to reporters before the weekend’s summit Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow did not currently see grounds for Ukraine peace talks. “The Kyiv regime does not want and cannot want peace, as long as it is used exclusively as a tool in the war of the collective West with Russia,” he said. He did, though, leave the door open to future Russian involvement, saying: “Any attempt to promote a peaceful settlement deserves a positive evaluation.”