A key mediator who assisted in facilitating the talks said in an interview with The Associated Press that a delegation of six African leaders scheduled to meet with Kyiv and Moscow aim to “initiate a peace process,” but also raise the difficult topic of how a Russia that is subject to harsh sanctions can be paid for the fertilizer exports that Africa so desperately needs.
When the African leaders visit both nations on what they have described as a peace mission, Jean-Yves Ollivier, an international negotiator who has been working for six months to organize the talks, said they would also talk about the related issue of easing the passage of more grain shipments out of Ukraine amid the war and the possibility of more prisoner swaps.
Ollivier predicted that the discussions will take place the next month.
He arrived in Moscow on Sunday and is also scheduled to travel to Kyiv to meet with top government representatives to arrange “logistics” for the upcoming talks. For starters, he claimed, the six presidents of Africa would probably need to travel by night train from Poland to Kyiv in the midst of the battle.
The presidents of South Africa, Senegal, Egypt, the Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Zambia have each agreed to host a delegation individually, as have Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Ollivier said in a video conference with the AP on Friday that China, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union, and the European Union all support the negotiations.
However, it doesn’t seem like either side of the conflict is prepared to end.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa made the announcement last week, just as Russia began a fierce airstrike on Kiev. Russia asserted on Sunday that it had conquered Bakhmut, a significant city in eastern Ukraine, following hard combat. Ukraine refuted this assertion.
Regarding the likelihood that the African leaders will make an immediate progress in putting an end to the 15-month conflict, Ollivier remarked, “We are not dreamers. “Unless something happens, I don’t think we’ll end our first mission with a ceasefire,” said the team leader.
The goal, according to Ollivier, a 78-year-old Frenchman who brought opposing parties together in crucial negotiations that helped end apartheid in South Africa in the late 1980s, was to “make a start.”
It all begins with signs. There is dialogue at the outset. And this is what we’ll attempt to accomplish,” Ollivier added. There is no assurance that we will be successful, but for the time being, Russia and Ukraine have agreed to have a delegation visit them specifically to discuss peace.
Grain and fertilizers are a crucial starting point for Africa.
Hunger and food poverty around the world have been made worse by the war’s harsh restrictions on the sale of fertilizers from Russia and grain from Ukraine. One of the most severely affected continents is Africa. The six African presidents want Russia to extend an arrangement that Turkey and the U.N. mediated last week that permits Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea to the rest of the globe by two more months.
Ollivier added that they also need to discuss how to make it simpler for African countries to accept supplies of and pay Russia for fertilizer. International restrictions do not apply to Russian fertilizer, but the U.S. and certain Western countries have singled out Russian cargo ships for punishment. The restrictions have also limited Russia’s access to the SWIFT system, making it difficult for African countries to order and pay for essential fertilizers.
Ollivier stated, “We will need to establish a window where SWIFT will be authorized for this particular time. “That will be on the table, and we hope that in that case we will gain the Russians’ support for the grains from Ukraine, as well as the support of the Ukrainians to find payments and shipments possible for the Russian fertilizer.”
There are other attempts at mediation outside the African mission. In February, China made its own peace proposal, and a Chinese representative has started speaking with Ukrainian officials. But the Western friends of Ukraine have mostly rejected China’s plan, and Beijing’s political backing for Moscow casts doubt on it.
Regarding any accords that might serve as the cornerstone of a peace agreement, Ukraine and Russia are very far apart.
Ollivier claimed that even after China “came to us and offered support” on the grounds that it would be a “parallel effort” to Beijing’s agenda, the African delegation still got support from a wide range of people.
The negotiation (between Moscow and Kyiv) will receive more backing and weight, according to Ollivier, the founding chairman of the London-based Brazzaville Foundation, a group that deals with conflict resolution. “If one party declines, the other party will take that into consideration. Do they only refuse Jean-Yves Ollivier? To the Foundation of Brazzaville? To the six chiefs of state (of Africa)?”
Or are they rejecting the United Nations, the Chinese, the Americans, or both? Towards the British? Regarding the European Union?
