From Friday, Munich will be at the center of efforts by Western powers to coordinate their strategy on the Ukraine crisis, as world leaders gather for the three-day Munich Security Conference (MSC).
In addition to speeches by United States Vice President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other leaders, the forum will host a series of sideline meetings to discuss tensions on Ukraine's borders.
Harris is scheduled to meet with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Friday, as well as hold talks with Baltic leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and Scholz during her visit.
G7 foreign ministers will meet on the sidelines of the conference on Saturday, including US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Germany currently chairs the group.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is also scheduled to attend on Saturday with the country's foreign and defense ministers.
Russia is not sending any official delegates to the Munich meeting for the first time in years, and the chairman of the conference, diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, said he deeply regretted this.
Ischinger told ARD that the non-arrival means that Russia will not be able to answer the central question of the conference: "What does it really take for the Russian side to finally give up on this threat scenario along the Ukrainian border and return to the diplomatic negotiating table"?
The build-up of the Russian army on the Ukrainian border and in neighboring Belarus and the Kremlin's demands that NATO not admit Ukraine into its military alliance have led to a series of diplomatic activities to avoid a full-scale conflict.
Russia has denied plans to invade Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin said during Scholz's visit to Moscow on Tuesday that he does not want war in Europe.
However, the announcements of the Russian withdrawal have so far not been reflected in major changes on the ground. The conference will be opened by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday afternoon. Talks on Ukraine, Russia and NATO will dominate the MSC on Saturday, while Sunday will be devoted to the future of the European Union.
More than 100 ministers and more than 30 heads of state and government will participate in the conference. Last year, the conference was held virtually due to the pandemic.
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