World
World leaders gather in Switzerland for Ukraine peace summit, excluding Russia
- Switzerland is hosting world leaders this weekend to discuss peace in Ukraine without Russia’s participation.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government excluded Russia from the talks, and Switzerland did not invite them.
- The conference is based on Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan from late 2022, aiming to rally international support.
Switzerland will host scores of world leaders this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine even though Russia, which launched the ongoing war, won’t take part.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government didn’t want Russia involved, and the Swiss — aware of Moscow’s reservations about the talks — didn’t invite Russia. The Swiss insist Russia must be involved at some point, and hope it will join the process one day. Ukrainians, too, are considering that possibility.
The conference, underpinned by elements of a 10-point peace formula presented by Zelenskyy in late 2022, is unlikely to produce major results and is seen as a largely symbolic effort on the part of Kyiv to rally the international community and project strength against its better armed and numbered adversary.
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But the question looming over the summit will be how the two countries can move back from the brink and eventually silence the guns in a war that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and caused hundreds and thousands of deaths and injuries, without Moscow attending.
The logo of the peace summit is pictured in Buergenstock, Switzerland, on June 13, 2024. Switzerland will host scores of world leaders this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine even though Russia, which launched the ongoing war, won’t take part. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)
The conflict has also led to international sanctions against nuclear-armed Russia and has raised tensions between NATO and Moscow. The summit comes as Russian forces have been making modest territorial gains in eastern and northeastern Ukraine, extending the grip they already hold on about a quarter of the country.
Here’s a look at what to expect from the weekend gathering at the Burgenstock Resort on a cliff overlooking Lake Lucerne.
Who’s going?
Among the stakes will be simple optics: How many countries the Swiss and Ukrainians can draw in. The bigger the turnout, the bigger the international push — and pressure — for peace will be, the thinking goes.
Swiss officials sent out some 160 invitations, and say about 90 delegations, including a handful of international organizations like the United Nations, will attend. Roughly half will be from Europe. Zelenskyy led a diplomatic push in Asia and beyond to rally participation.
Several dozen attendees will be heads of state or government, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
United States Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Zelenskyy on Saturday on the sidelines of the summit, according to a senior Biden administration official. Harris, who is making a quick trip to Lucerne to take part in the opening day, is also expected to deliver an address before the gathering.
The official, who briefed a small group of reporters on the vice president’s plans on the condition of anonymity, said Harris intended to focus her engagements on “defending and strengthening the international rules-based order.”
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Who are the major no-shows?
U.S. President Joe Biden, who was wrapping up a visit to Italy on Friday for a Group of Seven summit, opted to dispatch Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The president, meanwhile, was headed to Los Angeles for a glitzy campaign fundraiser with actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts, as well as former President Barack Obama.
Biden and Zelenskyy signed a 10-year security agreement Thursday at the G7 summit.
Russia’s key ally China will not attend.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said it believes any such international peace conference should involve both Russia and Ukraine, although Beijing supports efforts to bring the conflict to an end and is monitoring the developments in Switzerland.
The final list of attendees isn’t expected until late Friday, and question marks remain about how key developing countries like India, Brazil and Turkey might take part, if at all.
But so far, under half of the 193 United Nations member countries are planning to attend, testifying to a wait-and-see attitude in many world capitals.
“Russia does not have a lot of allies in this particular situation,” said Keith Krause, a professor of international security studies at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. “It has a number of states that are susceptible to being pressured, and a few that actually wish to stand aside, from what they see as a northern, U.S.-Russia, NATO-Russia confrontation.”
“They essentially don’t have — what they would consider — a dog in the fight,” he added.
What can be expected?
Naysayers have harrumphed that the peace summit will be short on substantial achievements toward peace without Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government doesn’t believe Switzerland, which has lined up behind European Union sanctions on Moscow over the war, is neutral.
Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, said peace talks without Russia’s participation are “a road to nowhere.”
“In practice, the main goal is to present an ultimatum to the Russian Federation in the form of the so-called ‘peace plan’” from Zelenskyy, the ambassador was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti.
Participants are expected to unite around an outcome document or a joint plan, and Ukraine will have a lot of input into what it says. But ironing out language that delegations can agree upon is still a work in progress, and could explain why some countries aren’t yet saying whether they will attend.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said Ukrainian officials wanted countries that respect Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity to be invited. He said the basis of the talks should be a 10-point peace formula that Zelenskyy has presented, and he held out the possibility that Russia could be invited to a second such summit.
Speaking to reporters late Tuesday, Yermak said Ukraine and the other participants would be preparing a “joint plan” to unite around, “and we’re looking for the possibility in the second summit to invite representative of Russia, and together present this joint plan.”
Asked what would be the measure of a successful summit in Burgenstock, he replied: “We think it’s already a success because it’s a big number of countries (attending).”
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What is the Ukrainian 10-point peace formula?
Ukraine’s peace plan launched by Zelenskyy outlines 10 proposals that encapsulates the president’s step-by-step vision to end the war against Russia’s invasion, now in its third year.
The plan includes ambitious calls, including the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory, the cessation of hostilities and restoring Ukraine’s state borders with Russia, including Crimea. That is an unlikely outcome at this stage in this war, as Ukraine is unable to negotiate from a position of strength. Moscow’s army has the upper hand in firepower and number of troops, while Kyiv’s momentum has been stalled by delays in Western military supplies.
That is likely why the most contentious elements of the plan are not being discussed.
Only three themes will be on the table at the summit: nuclear safety, including at the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant; humanitarian aid; and food security, not just in Ukraine but globally — notably the spillover effects of the war on Ukrainian agricultural production and exports.
Western officials in Kyiv said these themes cut across international interests and are easy for Kyiv to rally the international community around. But they do not encompass the tougher issues that can only be resolved with Moscow as a negotiating partner.
Russia’s hesitancy about the conference stems in part from its unwillingness to show any sign of acceptance of the Ukrainian peace formula, which it rejects, or any red lines set by Kyiv.
Putin has espoused a deal to be premised on a draft peace agreement negotiated in the early days of the war that included provisions for Ukraine’s neutral status and put limits on its armed forces while delaying talks on the status of Russian-occupied areas.
What’s the way forward?
Krause, of the Graduate Institute, said Ukraine needs to emerge from the conference with momentum — a reaffirmation of commitment from its top allies and partners around its bottom lines on issues like territorial integrity and future relationships, even if membership may be far off, in NATO or the European Union one day.
He said Ukraine will want to see a reaffirmation that it’s up to Kyiv to lay out the terms on which the war will end.
“I don’t think anybody is particularly deluded that this is going to give birth to a new peace plan, or even to some kind of agreement that stops the hostilities on the battlefield,” Krause said. “But as past wars have shown, including as far back as World War II, discussions about the contours of the peace begin long before the fighting stops on the battlefield.”
World
Trump says Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, killed in US-Nigerian operation
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President Donald Trump announced late Friday that U.S. and Nigerian forces carried out an operation that killed a global ISIS leader.
Trump identified the terrorist as Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom he described as ISIS’s second-in-command globally.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,” Trump continued. “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
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President Donald Trump sits at a table monitoring military operations during Operation Epic Fury against Iran at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 2. (The White House via X Account/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Trump also thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation in the mission.
“With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished,” he added.
Additional details surrounding the mission were not immediately available.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
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The announcement comes after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out multiple strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria in February as part of a joint military effort to “sustain relentless military pressure on remnants from the terrorist network.”
CENTCOM said U.S. forces struck ISIS infrastructure and weapons-storage targets using fixed-wing, rotary-wing and unmanned aircraft.
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The U.S. military carried out ten strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria following a December ambush that killed U.S. troops. (CENTCOM)
Trump told reporters on Jan. 27 that he had a “great conversation” with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“All of the things having to do with Syria in that area are working out very, very well,” he said at the time. “So, we are very happy about it.”
CENTCOM announced in February that more than 50 ISIS terrorists had been killed or captured and more than 100 ISIS infrastructure targets struck during two months of targeted operations in Syria.
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The U.S. launched Operation Hawkeye Strike in response to an ISIS ambush that killed two U.S. service members and an American interpreter Dec. 13, 2025, in Palmyra, Syria.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley J. DiMella contributed to this report.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks have killed 2,951 people since March 2 with at least 8,988 wounded.
Published On 16 May 2026
World
Hamas used sexual violence ‘deliberately and systematically’ on Oct 7, commission report finds
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WARNING: This article includes graphic and disturbing accounts from the October 7 massacre in Israel.
Hamas and its Palestinian collaborators used sexual and gender-based violence “deliberately and systematically” as an inherent part of a wider strategy of the 2023 massacres in southern Israel, according to a report released Tuesday by the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes Against Women and Children.
The Israeli nonprofit said its investigation documented evidence of abuse at multiple sites during the Oct. 7 terror invasion, including the Nova Music Festival, kibbutzim near the Gaza border, Israel Defense Forces bases, among hostages in captivity and in the condition of recovered bodies showing signs consistent with sexual violence.
According to the report, investigators identified at least 13 recurring forms of abuse, including rape, sexual torture, shootings directed at victims’ genital areas and abuse carried out after death.
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A Hamas terrorist is seen walking around a residential neighborhood in southern Israel in undated bodycam footage released by the Israel Defense Forces. The footage was shown to foreign correspondents on Oct. 16, 2023, as part of a 40-minute reel compiled from the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. (Israel Defense Forces/AP)
Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, founder and chair of the Civil Commission and a principal co-author of the report, told Fox News Digital that the greatest challenge in compiling the findings was the team’s repeated exposure to graphic material and the trauma associated with reviewing it on a regular basis.
“We had to not only collect materials, but also review and analyze it alongside forensic experts while witnessing human suffering at its worst,” Elkayam-Levy said. “What motivated us was the denial, the hesitation and the questioning. We wanted to ensure that the world knows what happened to the victims.
“For us, it is a final act of justice for the victims,” she added.
The report also detailed cases in which sexual violence was inflicted in front of or involving family members, including one incident in which relatives were allegedly forced to carry out acts on each other.
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People visit the site of the Nova music festival in Re’im, southern Israel, where revelers were killed in a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. The visit took place on Jan. 14, 2024, marking 100 days since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. (Leo Correa/AP)
It further accused Hamas and allied perpetrators of using videos, digital platforms and social media as tools to magnify psychological harm, spread fear and publicize the attacks, including by distributing sexualized material.
Elkayam-Levy said she hopes the findings will not remain confined to academics, human rights organizations or activists, but will also be studied by counterterrorism and national security experts to better understand and confront such atrocities.
“We cannot prevent what we do not fully understand,” Elkayam-Levy said. “No single prosecution could ever capture the full magnitude of these crimes in the way this report does. It is therefore critical that policymakers, decision-makers, members of Congress and senators find ways to formally recognize these findings and hold hearings so we can begin addressing this issue. We want the findings of this report to receive formal institutional recognition.”
The report, Elkayam-Levy noted, underscores that victims of the Oct. 7 atrocities came from 52 countries, highlighting the global scope and impact of the attack.
Witness testimony cited in the report included an account of a woman being sexually assaulted before being beheaded. Another witness described seeing a woman dragged from a vehicle, pinned against a wall, repeatedly raped and then stabbed, with the assault allegedly continuing after her death.
In another case, a witness described discovering the body of a man whose genitals had been severed, lying beside the body of a woman holding them, in what the report described as an apparent effort to degrade and humiliate the victims.
A Hamas terrorist is seen walking around a residential neighborhood in southern Israel in undated bodycam footage released by the Israel Defense Forces amid the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces/AP)
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Investigators said some female victims were found naked or partially unclothed, with evidence of severe mutilation and objects including grenades, nails and household tools inserted into their bodies. The report also cited gunshot wounds, cuts and burn injuries concentrated on intimate areas.
The report said some female bodies brought to morgues showed broken pelvises or legs, bloodied underwear and additional trauma to the abdomen or groin.
Former hostages, both women and men, have also testified to rape, sexual torture and other forms of abuse during abduction or captivity, according to the report. It said some female captives reported sexual assaults while receiving treatment in Gaza hospitals for injuries sustained during the attacks.
A bloodied handprint stains a wall inside a house in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border after a Hamas attack days earlier. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Male hostages likewise described sexual abuse while in captivity, including assaults in showers and incidents carried out under armed threat while victims were naked, the report said. One former hostage recounted being sexually assaulted when a captor forcibly rubbed his genitals against the victim’s anus.
Last month, former hostage Rom Braslavski recounted the abuse he said he endured during captivity in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
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“They would hit me with whatever they had on hand. I underwent severe torture, bondage and sexual abuse. Everything they could do to me, they did. My body is still covered in scars. After four months of torture, I was clinically dead, rolling my eyes and passing out. They decided to stop the violence and brought doctors to treat me with injections and gave me food again,” he said.
The report said sexual and gender-based violence was “widespread and systematic” and constituted an “integral component” of both the Oct. 7 attacks and the subsequent treatment of captives, while calling the prosecution of such crimes an “urgent” priority to be pursued through international accountability mechanisms.
A soldier of the Military Rabbinate unit opens a container holding bodies killed during the Hamas attack on Israel’s southern border as identification continues at the Shura army base in Ramle, Israel, on Oct. 24, 2023. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Among its recommendations, the commission called for targeted sanctions against individuals and entities accused of carrying out or materially supporting the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath. It also urged action against what it described as denial, minimization or politicization of the sexual crimes committed during the massacre and in captivity.
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“The Commission further recommends that Israel adopt a comprehensive gender strategy within its prosecutorial framework and establish a specialized chamber or panel of judges dedicated to the prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes committed on October 7th and during captivity,” the report said.
Elkayam-Levy said the report has received widespread international attention, including front-page coverage in U.S. and global media outlets. “We feel the discussion has shifted from questioning whether these crimes occurred to examining their consequences,” she said. “There is now a substantial legal evidentiary foundation preserved in a secure archive that cannot be denied.”
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