Russian President Vladimir Putin "is correct" when he states that the goal of the upcoming Ukraine 'peace' conference in Switzerland is to try to confirm Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy to the Western community, Christopher C. Black, an international criminal lawyer with 20 years of experience in war crimes and international relations and a commentator on international affairs, told Sputnik.
"It is a propaganda exercise to try to cover up the fact the Kiev regime is not legitimate. Of course legitimacy cannot be assured by statements by supporters of an illegitimate regime and those who arranged the coup d'etat of 2014," Black pointed out.
He was echoed by Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois' College of Law, who said in an interview with Sputnik that "everyone knows that the conference in Switzerland is a joke and a fraud that is based upon Zelensky’s peace program."
"[The] Switzerland [summit] will just be an anti-Russian propaganda stunt designed to further vilify Russia in the eyes of the world. I am surprised the Swiss government is going along with it. But, of course, Switzerland is a member of NATO’s Partnership For Peace (PFP) and is no longer truly neutral — I have lectured there against this and told the Swiss they should pull out of NATO/PFP," Boyle noted.
As for Zelensky, he "has never been a legitimate president of Ukraine," Black argued. According to him, the last legitimate president of Ukraine was Viktor Yanukovich, "who was overthrown in the NATO orchestrated coup d'etat of 2014" and who "has never served out his complete term."
"So when the Kiev coup regime conducted subsequent elections they could not be considered free and fair by any standards in the world. They were all rigged to maintain the coup regime in power under different figures or puppets," the analyst noted.
In this vein, he referred to the people of eastern Ukraine who "have never accepted the legitimacy of the regime installed by NATO in the coup of 2014 for two reasons - it was a regime that still regards them as enemies and their democratic choice was denied" and "their chosen president [Yanukovich] was overthrown."
The remarks come after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that discussing security issues at the Switzerland conference will be "absolutely futile" without the participation of Russia. "Most likely, it will be just empty scholasticism with no prospect of getting at least some tangible result," Peskov added.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier confirmed that Russia was not planning to participate in the summit due to be held in Buergenstock, Switzerland, on June 15-16.
She also said that Russia had no confidence in Bern, a supporter of the Ukrainian government in Kiev that has implemented several rounds of EU sanctions against Russia. "Under these circumstances, Switzerland cannot be a neutral host by definition, let alone a mediator," the spokeswoman underscored.