According to Bloomberg, President Joe Biden is expected to miss a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland next month because it conflicts with a campaign fundraiser in California he’s scheduled to attend alongside celebrities like George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and others.
The Swiss conference, aimed at finding a path to peace in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, is set for 15-16 June, shortly after the Group of Seven meeting in Italy. While several G-7 leaders plan to attend, neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to attend, the sources said Bloomberg.
Instead, Biden is set to fly from the G-7 meeting to Los Angeles for a 15 June fundraiser, where he will be joined by Clooney, Roberts, former President Barack Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
“The decision underscores how Biden is further shifting into campaign mode as he looks to overcome former President Donald Trump’s polling lead in key swing states ahead of the November election,” the report states.
The development also “reflects a broader pessimism about the conference,” with only about 70 countries expected to participate at some level, including leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was not invited to the summit, and diplomats have lowered Russia’s ambitions to focus on issues like nuclear safety and prisoner exchanges. This falls short of Ukraine’s blueprint for peace, which calls for withdrawing Russian troops and future security guarantees.
The White House has not disclosed whether US President Joe Biden will attend the Peace Summit in Switzerland in June.
At a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Kyiv in May, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Biden should attend the Peace Summit.
According to European Pravda, Blinken expressed his expectation that Presidents Zelenskyy and Biden would have the opportunity to meet in the coming weeks but did not specify when.
Zelenskyy presented earlier in May a three-point action plan for the upcoming peace summit in Switzerland.
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