In this photo provided by the photo agency RIA Novosti, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pose for a photo together during a meeting with a delegation of African leaders and senior officials in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, June 17, 2023.
Evgeny Biyatov/AP
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Evgeny Biyatov/AP
In this photo provided by the photo agency RIA Novosti, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pose for a photo together during a meeting with a delegation of African leaders and senior officials in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, June 17, 2023.
Evgeny Biyatov/AP
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday met with a group of leaders of African nations who had arrived in Russia on a self-proclaimed “peace mission” a day after their arrival in Ukraine, but the meeting ended without any obvious progress.
Seven African leaders – the presidents of the Comoros, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, as well as the prime minister of Egypt and top envoys from the Republic of Congo and Uganda – visited Ukraine on Friday to try to help end the ended the crisis nearly 16 months old. war.
Then the African leaders went to St. Petersburg on Saturday to meet Putin, who is attending Russia’s prominent international economic forum.
Details of the delegation’s proposals were thin.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the three-hour meeting that the African peace plan included 10 elements, but was “not built on paper.”
“Peace initiatives proposed by African countries are difficult to implement, difficult to compare positions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. But “President Putin has shown interest in looking into it.”
“He talked about our position. Not all of the terms can be correlated with the key elements of our position, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to continue doing it. work,” Peskov said.
“In my opinion, the main conclusion from today’s conversation is that our partners from the African Union have demonstrated an understanding of the real causes of the crisis created by the West and have demonstrated understanding that it is necessary to come out of this situation on the basis of addressing these root causes,” Lavrov said.
Russia says it was forced to send troops into Ukraine because it was threatened by Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and by its support from the United States and Western Europe.
Speaking at an economic forum on Friday, Putin announced that Russia’s first tactical nuclear weapon had been deployed to Belarus, describing the move as a deterrent to Western efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine. He previously said that the rollout would begin in July.
Asked if he could order the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, Putin said it was not necessary but noted that Moscow could use its nuclear arsenal in the event of an emergency. “threat to the Russian state”.
“In that case, we will certainly use all the means that the Russian state has. There is no doubt about that,” he said.
The business trip to Ukraine, the first of its kind by African leaders, follows other peace initiatives – such as China’s – and is of particular importance. for Africa, which depends on supplies of food and fertilizers from Russia and Ukraine. The war hampered exports from one of the world’s most important granaries.
“This conflict is negatively affecting Africa,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said at a news conference alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and four other African leaders after closed-door talks on Thursday. Six.
Ramaphosa and others acknowledge the intensity of hostilities but emphasize that all wars must come to an end and emphasize their willingness to help hasten it.
“I believe the Ukrainians feel that they must fight and not give up. The road to peace is very difficult,” he said, adding that “it is necessary to end this conflict soon.”
The delegation, which included President Macky Sall of Senegal and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, represented a section of African views on the war.
South Africa, Senegal and Uganda have avoided criticizing Moscow over the conflict, while Egypt, Zambia and the Comoros voted against Russia last year in a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion. Moscow.
Many African countries have long enjoyed close ties with Moscow, dating back to the Cold War when the Soviet Union supported their anti-colonial struggles.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Comoros President Azali Assoumani floated the idea of a “roadmap” to peace, prompting Zelenskyy to question, who was seeking clarification, and insisted he did not want to ” any surprises” from their visit with Putin.
The chances for peace talks look dim as Ukraine and Russia have markedly different views. Ukraine demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from all occupied territories as a condition of peace negotiations. In contrast, the Kremlin wants Ukraine to recognize the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as part of Russia and to recognize other land interests it has gained.
China presented its own peace proposal in late February. Ukraine and its allies have largely rejected the plan, as the warring parties do not appear to be moving any closer to a ceasefire.
The Africa peace mission comes as Ukraine launches a counter-offensive aimed at dislodging Kremlin forces from occupied areas, using advanced Western-supplied weapons in attacks in an isolated region. Some areas of the front line were more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) long.
In the village of Blahodatne, which was captured by Ukrainian forces in a counteroffensive six days ago, soldiers said they were ordered to continue advancing and not retreat, indicating the tough battles ahead in the direction the Russians have built dense fortification lines.
“The morale is really strong because the soldiers know that they are moving forward to liberate their land,” said a Ukrainian soldier with the alias Skripal (Violinist). “We have orders not to retreat and move forward, so we’re trying.”
The village streets were filled with pits, toppled buildings and bullet holes nearly everywhere. Inside a cultural center, a Ukrainian commander with the nickname “Lermontov” said they had captured many Russian soldiers during the liberation of the village and showed journalists four bodies he said were fighters. Russian soldiers were recruited from prisons.
