Strong pressure from the regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua This led to the Council of the European Union confirming this Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not attend on the European Union (EU) – Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit, to be held in Brussels between Monday and Tuesday.
A senior EU official made the decision public during a briefing organized by the Council of the European Union, Argentina newspaper Infobae reported.
A spokesman for the European bloc said later that Zelenskyy had not been invited, since he already visited the Belgian capital in February and has just attended the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, as a special guest. Likewise, the official, whose name is not given in the report, recalled that Ukraine is neither part of the EU nor CELAC.
“This is the first summit meeting with CELAC in eight years and the regions are unanimous. It is clear that Russian aggression has caused collateral damage elsewhere in the world, causing damage and fragility and creating food.” Insecurity and increased inflation. All this will probably be discussed (at the summit), but President Zelenskyy will not attend,” the official quoted as saying.
still in the same week The Ukrainian President himself said that Spanish President Pedro Sánchez had invited him to take part in the summit, but that several Latin American countries “blocked” their aid. The President did not say which countries were involved.
In the region, The regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua support Moscow’s invasion of the neighboring country, while Brazil tries to maintain a neutral positionalthough Brazilian President Lula da Silva ignored his Ukrainian counterpart at the recent G7 summit in May.
For its part, Argentina distanced itself from the decision, indicating that the participating countries should be those that approve Zelenskyy’s presence or not. For his part, Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle supported the Ukrainian’s presence at the meeting.
According to the Spanish press Sánchez believed that the upcoming summit could be a good opportunity for the region to understand the Ukrainian version of the conflict. However, the Spanish American states did not agree.
Havana is one of the few governments not to vote on key resolutions condemning the Kremlin at the UN General Assembly in 2022 for his invasion of Ukraine: he abstained in March 2022 (calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine); in October 2022 (against the annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territories) and in February 2023 (in support of a “comprehensive, just and lasting” peace in Ukraine).
He also opposed the November 2023 resolution that said Russia should pay Ukraine compensation for damages sustained during the military operation.
In April 2023, he abstained when the United Nations Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly to extend the mandate of a body charged with investigating possible war crimes in Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
In May, he voted against a World Health Organization (WHO) resolution supporting Ukraine’s healthcare system. and condemn Russia’s attacks on health facilities in that country.
Havana also voted against a video address by the President of Ukraine to the UN General Assembly in September 2022. The intervention nevertheless took place.