In his weekly news bulletin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa described as “historic” the African mission which, at the weekend, visited Ukraine and then Russia to offer mediation in the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Ramaphosa declared that “This initiative is historic because it is the first time that African leaders have embarked on a peace mission beyond the shores of the continent”.
Ramaphosa headed a delegation made up of three other presidents: Macky Sall (Senegal), Hakainde Hichilema (Zambia), and Azali Assoumani (Comoros), current president of the African Union, as well as Congolese, Ugandan, and Egyptian representatives.
The delegation met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Saturday, before holding talks with Russian Head of State Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg the following day.
On Monday, Mr. Ramaphosa announced that the EU mission to the five countries of the East African Community (EAC) had received a positive reception, giving them grounds for optimism that their proposals would be accepted. This agreement had first been negotiated in 2016.
Mr. Zelensky rejected the offer of African mediation, saying that “allowing negotiations with Russia now, when the occupier is on our land, means freezing the war”. For its part, the Kremlin considered that the African plan was “very difficult to implement” while assuring that President Putin had “expressed his interest in examining it”.