Conflict and Peace

The Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah is to host a global summit on reaching peace in Ukraine on Saturday (5 August). The summit will be attended by some 40 countries including many countries of the "Global South", as well as China. Russia was not invited to the talks, however, and Moscow has said that they will "monitor" the summit. The discussion and future implementation of Ukraine's Peace Formula, set out by President Volodymyr Zelensky during an address to the G20 in November, will be the subject of the summit in Jeddah.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers meet in Moscow today at the invitation of their Russian counterpart. It is the latest attempt by Russia to ensure that it is not marginalized, as Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations continue in earnest with western mediation. In this op-ed for commonspace.eu, Benyamin Poghosyan says that Russian demands to include in the peace agreement the issue of rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh may allow Armenia to take a more flexible position during the upcoming negotiations and seek to create minimally acceptable conditions for Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh. 

On the night of Monday (24 July), Russia launched a wave of drone strikes on Ukrainian grain silos at the Danube river ports of Izmail and Reni, located only 200m from the Ukraine's border with NATO member state Romania. The airstrikes injured six people and damaged grain storage units. Ukraine's Southern Military Command said they shot down three drones out of a total of 15 launched at the facility.

On Saturday, 15 July, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan once again met in Brussels, under the auspices of the president of the European Council Charles Michel, to discuss the future of the relations between their two countries after years of war and conflict. Those who hoped for a dramatic breakthrough in the past in the process of Armenia - Azerbaijan normalisation, may have been disappointed at how slow the process moved. Yet progress is being made, and yesterday, speaking after the meeting in Brussels, European Council president Charles Michel summed it up, saying "We are going through one of the most comprehensive and vigorous stages of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan". Those who still think that peace is a "moment" are mistaken. It is a process that needs to develop step by step. The meeting in Brussels this weekend was certainly a step in the right direction.

The United Nations (UN) has warned that Sudan risks descending into a "full-scale civil war" after an air strike was launched on a residential area in the city of Omdurman near the capital, Khartoum, on Sunday (9 July). The Deputy Spokesperson of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that he condemned the air strike that killed at least 22 people, adding that he "remains deeply concerned that the ongoing war between the armed forces has pushed Sudan to the brink of a full-scale civil war, potentially destabilizing the entire region." He said that "there is an utter disregard for humanitarian and human rights law that is dangerous and disturbing." Fighting broke out between two rival generals in Sudan on 15 April after talks between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, over a transition to a civilian government broke down, and fighting erupted. Since then approximately 3,000 people are confirmed to have been killed in the conflict, although the true death toll is likely to be much higher. Widespread sexual violence, targeted ethnic violence, and looting have been reported, as well as food and water shortages especially in the capital city of Khartoum.