Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Prabowo called on defense and military officials from around the globe to help pressure both Kyiv and Moscow to start negotiations for peace, noting that the war had far reaching impacts beyond just Ukraine and Russia.

“[The war in] Ukraine has affected the livelihoods of all the peoples of the world. The price of energy has gone up, the price of food has gone up. This has resulted in much suffering for many peoples of the world,” Prabowo said on the second day of the three-day forum.

To this end, he proposed a peace plan that included an "immediate cessation of hostilities", a cease-fire "at present positions" and a withdrawal of both Russian and Ukrainian troops 15 kilometers from their forward positions to create a new demilitarized zone.

He said the demilitarized zone should be observed and monitored by a peacekeeping force deployed by the United Nations and that the UN should organize a referendum “to ascertain objectively the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants of the various disputed areas".

Prabowo, a leading presumptive candidate for the presidency next year, also said Indonesia would be happy to deploy military personnel for UN peacekeeping missions.

“Let us not put blame on any side. There are always two versions to any conflict. Both sides feel strongly of their righteousness. But for the security of the world [and] for the safety of the innocent, we have to achieve secession of hostilities as soon as possible,” he said.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov flatly rejected the proposal.

"It sounds like a Russian plan, not an Indonesian plan," he said on a separate panel at the conference, as quoted by AFP. "We don't need this mediator coming to us [with] this strange plan.”

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko also dismissed the plan, reiterating Kyiv's position that, as Russia was the aggressor, it should be the one to withdraw its troops and that any proposals for a cease-fire would allow Moscow to regroup and reinforce.

“There are no disputed territories between Ukraine and the Russian Federation to hold referendums there," he said, as quoted by Reuters. "In the occupied territories, the Russian army commits war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

Defense Ministry spokesman Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak told The Jakarta Post on Sunday that Prabowo’s comments were “carrying out what is mandated by the Constitution – that Indonesia should promote world peace while also maintaining free and active foreign diplomacy”.

“We will spare no effort [to achieve] world peace. This includes proposing dialogues and throwing out ideas regardless of whether or not they can be agreed upon,” Dahnil said. “[Prabowo] will continue to call for peaceful resolutions, not only for the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, but also [for conflicts] in other parts of the world.”

While Indonesia has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it did not follow Western nations in imposing economic sanctions on Moscow.

In visits to both Ukraine and Russia in June of last year, during Indonesia’s chairmanship of the Group of 20, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo attempted to broker peace between the two countries.

The Foreign Ministry declined to comment and referred questions on the topic to Prabowo’s office.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky has proposed a 10-point peace plan that calls on Russia to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine. Nikolenko urged Indonesia to support Zelensky's peace plan, Reuters reported.

US-China tensions

The increasingly strained ties between the United States and China also took center stage at this year’s security summit.

In their latest row, the US Navy said a Chinese destroyer made "unsafe" maneuvers near a US warship in the Taiwan Straits on Saturday, Reuters reported, as delegates at the summit debated the risks of accidents and miscalculations amid those tensions. China's military criticized the US and Canada for "deliberately provoking risk" after their warships staged a rare joint sailing through the sensitive strait.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have been rising, especially over the future of Taiwan, territorial claims in the South China Sea and US President Joe Biden’s restrictions on semiconductor chip exports.

But Prabowo, in his Saturday speech, expressed optimism that leaders of both countries were wise enough to communicate to defuse tensions.

National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) international relations expert Dewi Fortuna Anwar noted that Prabowo had urged compromise and win-win solutions among the two great powers, while promoting the ASEAN way of an open, transparent and inclusive regional architecture in the Indo-Pacific.

– A. Muh. Ibnu Aqil contributed to the story