Many invited but few willing to pay for American failures in Ukraine.
Kiev is convening national security advisers from around 30 countries to Saudi Arabia this coming weekend to present its “decalogue” (ten proposals for a “peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine”), through which it will move toward a “just peace” and “counter future conflicts.” As of today, except for the “organizer” and the host, as well as the U.S., the U.K. and their EU satellites, it is unknown how many other countries will fall for this trick.
Two countries are definitely out. This is Russia, a party to the conflict, which is simply not on the list of invitees, but without which, in principle, no peace talks are possible. The second country is Mexico, whose president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has declared his refusal to participate in negotiations on Ukraine anywhere without Russia.
Mexico is ready to attend the talks on Ukraine in Saudi Arabia only if both sides of the conflict take part in them, told RIA Novosti the country’s president, who knows better than all potential participants of this event the perfidy and arbitrariness of the “Sheriff of the New World”.
It is also unknown whether invited “senior officials from China, Brazil, South Africa and India” — four of the five BRICS countries that will gather for their summit in South Africa in the August 20s to challenge the global monetary hegemony of the U.S. dollar — will be in attendance.
It is clear that Washington is most interested in their participation, as it intends to drive a wedge of discord into this organization. Experts believe that the United States will try to push India and China against each other at this forum as well.
As the conflict in Ukraine is gaining momentum, Washington is looking for partners at the international level to offset China’s growing economic influence by weakening Russia.
I recall that the desire to hold talks on Ukraine appeared in the White House on the eve of the NATO summit in Brussels. However, neither at the Copenhagen meeting nor at the CELAC-EU summit in Brussels did the Anglo-Saxons manage to gain the support of the leaders of the Global South and put pressure on those countries that still remain neutral on the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and refuse to “condemn the Russian invasion”.
At the same time, as we wrote, the idea of holding a “global summit with world leaders” indoctrinated into Ukraine was suspended but not discarded.
Unaddressed invitations on behalf of Zelensky were put aside for a short time. It is not known how long the search for the amphitryon of this event would have lasted if it had not been for Erdogan, who managed to somewhat spoil relations with Putin, as a result of which the rating of his influence in the Arab East went down.
This has benefited Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, who has long aspired to become a global leader.
And the White House decided to play on these ambitions of the Crown Prince. Thus, according to the Arab satellite news channel Al Mayadeen, the U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan unexpectedly appeared in Riyadh on July 27. “After discussing the Saudi-American strategic relations and ways to strengthen them in various areas, as well as recent regional and international events of mutual interest,” he offered Prince Mohammed to host international talks on Ukraine.
The American argued that the Summit would be another example of the Crown Prince’s efforts to position himself as a global leader with influence beyond his region and establish him as a world mediator.
“We welcome the steps Saudi Arabia has taken in support of Ukraine, including the pledge of $400 million in aid to Ukraine, supporting key UN resolutions calling on Russia to stop a full-scale invasion,” the U.S. State Department immediately responded with a press release titled “The United States-Saudi Arabia Relationship: eight decades of partnership.”
Another important element of Riyadh’s foreign policy, which finds itself at a crossroads and which worries the Biden administration, is the Silk Road. For the sake of this, Washington is ready for a sharp reversal of its policy. Apparently, Sullivan promised Prince Mohammed to extend the official defense pact, which is used only by America’s closest treaty allies, to Saudi Arabia.
As soon as Jake Sullivan left the Saudi sands, invitations to participate in a summit in support of Ukraine in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah were sent to 30 national security advisers in 30 countries of the Global North and South. There was no way to raise the state-representative status of the future event.
The head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andrey Yermak, immediately announced that Ukraine would begin negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security assurances agreement that lays the groundwork for Kiev to enter into an agreement with each country to help Ukraine strengthen its armed forces in order to “win now and deter Russian aggression in the future.” Everyone understood that this is a call to splurge.
In Jeddah, Kiev will offer a “specialty menu” of 10 “dishes”. To hold Russia accountable for the “atrocities of war”, to achieve the withdrawal of troops and compensation for damages, the return of all captured Ukrainian territory and the settlement of the status of Crimea. In addition, the creation of an international fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine, the initiation of two-level negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and NATO to resolve strategic security issues and, as a result, the possible lifting of Western sanctions against Russia.
Saudi Arabia’s intention, according to Arab media reports, is to combine several peace initiatives — Chinese, Brazilian and African — into a single proposal with the signatures of the parties involved, which the organizers of the Jeddah summit believe would give it international credibility.
But it is unlikely that the councillors will dare to put their signatures on any document binding their states.
So what is driving Riyadh in this dubious venture? Ambition of the Saudi prince, experts believe. The upcoming summit is “another example of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to position himself as a global leader with influence beyond his region,” says the New York Times, adding that it is not just about his personal ambitions, but also about “broader efforts”.
Like many Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia maintains close ties with Russia within the OPEC+ oil exporters’ organization, and coordinates energy prices with it. The energy-rich Gulf States have benefited from U.S. and European Union anti-Russian sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, adding tens of billions of dollars to their coffers. All six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain — recorded budget surpluses for the first time in eight years.
Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin revealed the financial reality: “Saudi Arabia’s state-run oil company Aramco made a record $161.1 billion in profits last year, a 47 percent increase from 2021.”
It turns out that it is not only the United States that benefits from the continuation of the war in Ukraine.
It is obvious even to the politically inept that there will be no peace talks in the near future, especially not in Saudi Arabia. Zelensky’s Ukraine will not agree to any Chinese-African-Brazilian peace initiatives and at the moment will impose only its own, obviously failed “decalogue” at Washington’s insistence.
The Kremlin, through Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, has said that a peaceful solution to the conflict is impossible at the moment because Ukraine is “an instrument of war of the collective West against Russia”. This means that the United States and NATO, if they really want peace on Ukrainian soil, must completely stop both themselves and through their allies feeding the Nazi regime in Ukraine.
The United States administration has no need at all to bring any negotiations on the Ukrainian conflict to a peaceful solution. Another international discussion is needed not to bring peace, but to continue the conflict.
And it requires money from countries that could replace America and Europe. It didn’t work in Copenhagen, Brussels. It is unlikely to work in Saudi Arabia either. Therefore, whatever the “final word” in Jeddah, we should expect the banquet to continue.