Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes the talks, following similar meetings in Jeddah and Copenhagen earlier this year, will garner support for his peace plan.
“It is clear that such meetings have no perspective, they simply produce the opposite result,” the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Marija Zakharova told reporters.
She added that the upcoming meeting “has nothing to do with the search for a peaceful solution” and criticized Malta for agreeing to host the event, which she called blatantly anti-Russian.
The head of the administration of the President of Ukraine, Andrijus Yermak, said that he was optimistic about the meeting and that about 60 countries had confirmed their participation.
“This meeting is a strong signal that unity has been preserved in Ukraine,” he said on Ukrainian television.
Zelensky is promoting his own 10-point peace plan, which calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, including Russian-controlled territories.
Russia, which announced in September 2022 that it had annexed four Ukrainian territories (Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions), has rejected any agreement to relinquish the occupied lands.
Both Russia and Ukraine are bracing for a grueling winter ahead, with Ukraine warning of renewed strikes on its energy infrastructure and Russia trying to stifle a Ukrainian counterattack.
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