Plenković: Peace must be just and sustainable, and negotiations without Ukraine are a "no go"

Advocating for a principled approach to achieving a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine, which will respect the principles of international order and law, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, Prime Minister Plenković warned at the International Security Conference in Munich that just a pragmatic approach to stopping military operations, which would turn into a frozen conflict and which would leave the annexed and occupied territories under the Russian constitutional system in the long term, would be a failure not only of Ukraine but also of the international community and everything it represents. He said that peace negotiations without the participation of Ukraine are a "no go", and without the presence of Europe are completely politically unacceptable, considering the transatlantic partnership, alliance within NATO and bilateral relations.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković is attending the International Security Conference in Munich. Today, he took part in the Ukrainian Lunch panel, organized by the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation, together with the President of Estonia Alar Karis, the Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen, the Vice President of the Government of Ukraine Olha Stefanišina and the special envoy for Ukraine of the US President Trump, General Kieth Kellogg.

On that occasion, he said that everyone is very attentively following the signals of US President Donald Trump and his administration about achieving peace in Ukraine and would like them to be elaborated a little more.

He believes that there are two approaches to achieving peace, one is a pragmatic approach, and the other is a principled approach.

The pragmatic approach is about stopping the killing now because too many people have died and there is too much destruction. If this is the approach of the new administration, he added, he can understand it, and the efforts for a quick end to hostilities should be welcomed.

A peace that will respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine

However, there is also a principled approach. We are witnessing a complete negation and violation of the international law and order, as well as the fundamental values ​​that we advocate.

He added that both of these episodes, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the beginning of aggression three years ago in 2022, happened during the administration of the Democratic Party in the USA.

What Ukrainian President Zelensky, as well as the leaders of the European Union, with perhaps one or two exceptions, is advocating is that it is necessary to achieve not just any kind of peace, but a just peace that will respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

Because, he added, if that pragmatic approach ended with a truce that would turn into a frozen conflict and that would leave the annexed and occupied territories under the Russian constitutional system in the long term, it would not be a victory.

This would be a failure not only of Ukraine, he warned, but of the international community and everything it represents.

Croatia has provided Ukraine with significant military and other assistance, he recalled, both bilaterally and through European Union aid packages, and will continue to do so because it is one of the few countries that had the experience of occupied territories in the 1990s.

Some of them, he emphasized, we managed to return only when we became strong enough and equaled in power with the then aggressor Milošević's Serbia.

We were strong enough to regain the territory militarily, and we returned the remaining part to our constitutional order with the help of the UN and the strong leadership of the then American General Klein.

This experience of peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region, he emphasized, can also be useful for Ukraine.

Peace negotiations must include Ukraine and Europe

As for peace negotiations, with all due respect to the American initiative, they are a "no go" without the participation of Ukraine, Prime Minister Plenković said.

Peace negotiations without the presence of Europe would be completely politically unacceptable, given the transatlantic partnership, NATO alliance and bilateral relations.

European countries have collectively contributed a lot in military, financial, humanitarian, technical and other ways, he said, and at every meeting of the European Council in the last three years, special attention has been paid to Ukraine.

If Europe was not represented at the table in the peace negotiations now, it would be more than unusual, added Prime Minister Plenković.

Anything less than a just and principled peace would be a terrible message in future crises

Prime Minister Plenković described Ukraine's fight for its freedom as heroic, with incredible resilience, and that should be respected, he said.

Therefore, peace, he added, must be just and principled. Anything less than that would be a terrible message in future crises, future expansionist policies, future aggressions and future instabilities in Europe and the world, he stressed.

The continuation of military and any other support to Ukraine in order to strengthen its efforts to defend its territory, he added, should run parallel to the peace negotiations.

The past time, he said, warns everyone not to be politically naive, because if Russia spends 10 percent of its GDP and almost 40 percent of its budget on the military, it is not a short-term exercise but a war economy with long-term goals, and this should be taken into account in the context of peace negotiations.

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