Russia rejects Ukraine's 'peace proposal' in February, calls it error 'diplomacy 404'

Russia’s UN mission on Tuesday responded to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba's proposal of holding a "peace summit" at the United Nations brokered by the UN chief Antonio Guterres in February, saying that it was an error "diplomacy 404".

Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky wrote on Telegram that on one hand, Ukrainian official pushed for the suspension of Russia as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), all the while also stating that Russia shall not be a part of the said peace summit. 

"[Ukrainian] Foreign Minister Kuleba said Kyiv aims for a certain ‘peace summit’ before the end of February where the UN chief could play the role of a ‘mediator,' but if we try to put these two stories together, they are mutually exclusive so what sort of ‘peace summit’ can occur without Russia,"Russia's First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said in a lengthy post. 

A 'routine hysteria' by Ukraine at UN: Russian official 

Russian official Polyansky berated the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's statement alleging that Russia had acquired membership of the UN Security Council and the UN "illegally". He noted that none at the UN Security Council meetings even reacted to what he described as the "routine hysteria" projected by Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN, Sergey Kislitsa. 

Polyansky asserted that while Ukraine suggests exluding Russia from the peace talks, "imagining one without Ukraine is very easy." He continued, that such a scenario "would be a nightmare for all those Kulebas and Kislitsas whose initiatives have been bringing this scenario forward. This is what Polyansky described as error "diplomacy 404".

Earlier yesterday, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry demanded that Russia must be kicked out of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and from the UN as a whole. Moscow has occupied "the seat of the U.S.S.R. in the UN Security Council" illegally since after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it alleged.

"Three decades of its illegal presence in the UN have been marked by wars and seizures of other countries' territories," Ukraine foreign ministry's statement read. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba in an interview with the Associated Press said that the Ukraine's government is hoping to conduct a peace summit by the end of February with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as the mediator. 

“The United Nations could be the best venue for holding this summit because this is not about making a favour to a certain country," Kuleba stressed. He labelled Guterres’ participation as significant because he had proved to be an efficient mediator and “a man of principle and integrity.”

Kuleba also noted that Russia will only be invited to the summit if it faced the war crimes tribunal first for its alleged crimes on the Ukrainian territory during the 10-month-long invasion.