On February 24, on the first anniversary of the full-scale war, the world found out about two "peaceful" initiatives.

The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution Ukraine and its partners proposed on the principles of a future peaceful settlement. On Friday night, China also presented the previously promised peace settlement plan.

Both documents are surprising.

The Ukrainian document has turned out to be much less ambitious than many expected.

At the same time, the Chinese "peace plan" has turned out to be better than expected.

Read more in the article by the editor of "European Pravda" Sergiy Sydorenko, China's game for peace: what decisions on the anniversary of the war mean for Ukraine (Ukr).

On February 23, the UN General Assembly voted for the Ukrainian "peace formula" resolution.

The mentioned "formula" is a list of 10 conditions or "10 steps to end the war", which Zelenskyy presented at the G20 summit last November. That plan sounded like an undoubtedly beneficial initiative for Ukraine. It did not have any concessions from the Ukrainian side but had strict requirements and restrictions imposed on Russia, including compensation for damages caused by its aggression; provision of international security guarantees to Ukraine; criminal conviction of the leadership of the Russian Federation for the crime of aggression, etc.

This plan is about the option of victory that Ukraine seeks. So its support at the UN level would be a really powerful achievement.

However, there were no grounds for such high expectations.

The adopted resolution of the UN General Assembly does not foresee any fundamentally new "victory."

The text, which Ukraine and its partner states agreed upon and registered last week, is acceptable for Ukraine and contains no harmful thesis. In fact, it only repeats the previous decisions of the General Assembly.

The document does not include the so-called "peace plan." It is absolutely incorrect to say that it embodies the "10 steps to peace" presented by Zelenskyy last year.

Despite the criticism outlined above, the resolution adopted on February 23 is definitely okay for Ukraine. The document was not an issue but Zelenskyy's unjustifiably raised expectations.

Instead, the importance of the UN General Assembly decision is about something else. It was deliberately formulated as vaguely as possible to get a maximum number of states on the Ukrainian side. It has been achieved.

This year's voting has proved that the world is on Ukraine's side.

141 countries, like a year ago, voted for the resolution. However, the votes "against" increased somewhat: seven states opposed the idea. Nicaragua and Mali were added to Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Eritrea, and Syria.

Even more interesting was the vote for two amendments to the resolution, which Russia had submitted through its puppet Belarus.

China is not on the list of countries that voted for them.

Given that China's position is important for many countries, this will greatly help Ukraine consolidate global support.

This state is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a significant regional and global leader, which is equaled by many states in Asia and Africa.

So, we have good (although not earth-shatteringly good!) news for Ukraine.

Official Beijing made its document public five hours later since the adoption of Ukraine's resolution by the UN Assembly. This in itself has already become an indicative signal. There were suspicions at first that the Chinese authorities would put forward a project alternative to the Ukrainian one, which could significantly reduce the number of votes in its favour.

But the text of the Chinese proposal has added even more positivity. The 12-point paper is not a "peace plan." Instead, it fixes the future positions the Chinese leadership will follow in Russia's war against Ukraine. And Kyiv could stick to a significant part of these positions.

It is about the territorial integrity of Ukraine as a basic principle (Crimea is Ukraine!), the need to demilitarise the Zaporizhzhia NPP and stop attacks on any nuclear plants; an absolute ban on using nuclear weapons; support of the "grain corridor."

In addition, there are two important points on which China's position differs from expectations.

The first is banning the supply of weapons to the conflict zone. The Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi mentioned it just a week ago. It is not there anymore. Doesn't it mean that China is planning to send weapons?

The second feature is undeniably positive for Ukraine. China proposes gradually moving towards negotiations on the conditions to make a ceasefire possible. Formally, even the Ukrainian peace plan falls under this proposal. Although it is more realistic that China tried to find a scheme that would allow it not to side with Russia or Ukraine.