Zelenskyy nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
4 October 05:24President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024. He is among the favourites among 286 candidates. This was reported by Komersant Ukrainian with reference to Reuters.
Bookmakers consider Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in February, to be the favourite to win this year’s prize. But he cannot receive the prize posthumously, so it is impossible.
Another favourite with bookmakers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is unlikely to win because he is the leader of a country at war.
Other favourites include the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the International Court of Justice and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Pope Francis has also been nominated for the prize.
Instead, as 2024 is marked by the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, Ukraine’s war against Russia, which is now in its third year, and the bloodshed in Sudan, which has displaced more than 10 million people, the Nobel Committee may focus on humanitarian figures who help alleviate the suffering of civilians, journalists say.
However, the Norwegian Nobel Committee may surprise the world by not awarding the prize to anyone at all at the ceremony on 11 October.
“Maybe this is the year when the Nobel Peace Prize committee should just drop the prize and focus on the fact that this is a warring planet,” Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, told Reuters.