Biden to skip Peace Summit for Hollywood fundraiser - Media

US President Joe Biden is likely to miss the World Summit in Switzerland in June, as he is scheduled to attend his campaign event in California. This was reported by Bloomberg on 23 May.

Joe Biden has a trip planned to California along with George Clooney, Julia Roberts and other Hollywood stars.

The peace summit will be held in Switzerland on 15-16 June, following the G7 meeting in Italy. Several G7 leaders are planning to attend the Summit, but neither Biden nor US Vice President Kamala Harris will attend.

Biden is scheduled to fly to Los Angeles after the G7 meeting in southern Italy to attend a fundraiser on 15 June. Along with Clooney and Roberts, he will be joined by former US President Barack Obama and late-night TV show host Jimmy Kimmel.

The decision underscores Biden's increasing shift into campaign mode as he tries to overcome former President Donald Trump's lead in key states ahead of the November election," the publication reported.

Last month, Trump surpassed Biden in fundraising for the first time in the current election cycle, raising $76 million.

About 70 countries will attend the Peace Summit at some level, including leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is likely to be there too.

China and several other countries in the so-called Global South are pushing for Russian Federation to be involved. Ukraine and its allies are reluctant to engage Moscow until the principles that will determine any future peace settlement are widely agreed upon. The summit in Switzerland was originally conceived as a first step toward that goal.

The diplomats who organised the Summit scaled back its ambitions and focused on a narrow set of objectives, such as nuclear security and prisoner exchange, in an attempt to broaden the scope of participation. These points are inconsistent with Ukraine's peace plan, which requires the withdrawal of Russian troops as well as future security guarantees," the publication wrote.

Russian Federation has also insisted that Asian, African and South American countries should not participate in the summit.

Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other officials met and called colleagues from dozens of countries, from India to the Comoros, with the apparent goal of keeping them from attending the Swiss conference, according to a diplomatic memo obtained by Bloomberg.

Lavrov has also approached ambassadors in Moscow for the same purpose, the note said, and a meeting of foreign ministers from the so-called BRICS countries and their allies on 10-11 June should cement those efforts.

Earlier Socialportal reported that President Zelensky received information from intelligence that Russia has a concrete plan to disrupt the Peace Summit.