The calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine continue as Egypt and Serbia add their voices to the growing number of calls to end the fighting in Ukraine.

As bne IntelliNews reported, Ukraine is inching towards a ceasefire as pressure grows on Kyiv. The governments of Egypt and Serbia called for a resolution to the Ukraine crisis “as soon as possible,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said at a joint news conference with his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, who is visiting the Egyptian capital, on July 13.

"In terms of international issues, our discussions dwelled on various aspects, first of all the Ukraine crisis," el-Sisi told reporters. "We emphasised the need to reach peace as soon as possible," he added.

Egypt has emerged as one of Russia’s strongest supporters in Africa. El-Sisi was a guest of honour at the 2023 St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), where he co-hosted the planetary session with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Egypt has turned to Russia to supply it with grain and nuclear power technology, amongst other things.

Serbian President Aleksander Vucic is also a close Russian ally, despite the country’s concurrent bid to join the EU. Belgrade has refused to impose sanctions on Russia and continues to import significant amounts of Russian gas to power its economy.

Nevertheless, the Financial Times revealed that Serbia has indirectly provided Ukraine with armaments worth €800mn, which came as a surprise. Serbia reportedly sent arms to Ukraine with the Kremlin’s knowledge and commentators in Moscow failed to condemn Vucic.

The end of the Ukrainian conflict is impossible at the moment, even by means of using China’s latest initiative, Vucic said in a frank interview in July. "I don't see a scenario of ending the war in Ukraine for now. I have studied the Chinese initiative. It is good. It is really good. I welcome this six-point proposal. I believe that over 100 countries have already supported it, which is crucial, because it envisages an immediate ceasefire. Only when a ceasefire has been achieved and when no more people lose their lives the negotiations should begin, but I do not see a chance for this to happen," Vucic said.

The calls come as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban put the cat amongst the pigeons with a series of meetings after Hungary took over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on July 1, visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv before travelling on to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on July 5. Orban later met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China and former US President Donald Trump in the US as part of what he dubbed a “peace mission.” During the Nato summit he told delegates that “Ukraine should not join Nato.”

The EU executives were outraged by what they called Orban’s “fake diplomacy” and have promised to punish Budapest for undermining the unity of the EU’s support for Ukraine.

However, with the military campaign in a stalemate and Western arm supplies unlikely to be increased dramatically before next year, a growing number of Ukraine’s supporters are saying the time for talks has come.

The recent Swiss peace summit held on June 16-17 was deemed a failure after Kyiv was unable to attract a significant number of countries from the Global South to participate and only 78 countries signed the final watered down communiqué, and even then several countries quietly removed their names after coming under pressure from the Kremlin.

Likewise, the Nato summit held in Washington on July 11-13 was equally inconclusive. Nothing was added to Ukraine’s aspiration to join the military alliance other than to say the path to Ukraine’s accession was “irreversible”, but no roadmap or timeline for its joining was given.

Likewise, Zelenskiy's strenuous calls for permission to use Western-supplied weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia were rebuffed. The main concrete results were the promise of a few more Patriot missile batteries and an extra $40bn of funding for this year by Nato members. Promises of the delivery of badly needed F-16 were repeated, but again no concrete timeline was given, although the first four F-16s are expected to arrive this summer.

Ukraine will get fewer F-16 fighter jets this summer due to a language barrier between Ukrainian pilots and their foreign instructors as well as complex logistics of delivering spare parts, Bloomberg said citing sources on July 14. Ukraine will eventually be able to field a squadron of between 15 and 24 jets, according to one of the sources, far short of the 120 planes Zelenskiy has been calling for. Another source spoke about 20 F-16s that are supposed to be delivered by the end of this year.

In Kyiv the new delays will appear as more foot dragging, as the US has reportedly deliberately dragging its heels in training pilots to fly the desperately needed F-16 fighter jets, afraid of escalating tensions with Russia further.

Peace brokers

China and Brazil have also called for talks. On May 23, following a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian Presidential Special Representative for International Affairs Celso Amorim, the two sides issued a joint statement saying that the sole way of resolving the conflict in Ukraine was through a dialogue and negotiations. China and Brazil called for convening an international conference "at an appropriate time" with all parties enjoying equal representation.  

The leaders of both Bulgaria and Turkey have also recently offered to mediate talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Bulgaria to advocate for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia at Nato summit and Bulgaria's interim Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev said that Sofia was willing to act as a mediator. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a similar offer, but so far the Kremlin has rebuffed the idea of starting talks.

However, Erdogan said that talks on restarting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, that was suspended last year, have resumed, in which Turkey played a key role. There have been no results yet, Erdogan told reporters after the return from the Nato summit.

"We suggest opening the grain corridor again and are now holding talks on that with Russia and with Ukraine. We have not yet received any results on this issue. My last meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was dedicated to that. We discussed these issues with President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenskiy at the Nato summit. We want to work on the grain corridor with the Ukrainian side also. We hope we will start using this corridor again," Erdogan said, cited by the Anadolu agency.

Zelenskiy has called for a second peace summit to which both Russia and China will be invited to be held before the November presidential elections, as it looks increasingly likely that Trump will be re-elected and has threatened to end support for Ukraine.