The delegation started their ‘peace mission’ in Ukraine and will go to Russia on Saturday to meet with President Putin.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, asked a delegation of African leaders to persuade Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, to release political prisoners from Crimea and elsewhere, saying that it would be a “important step” during their visit to Russia on Saturday.
Seven African leaders visited Ukraine on Friday as part of a purported “peace mission” to both Russia and Ukraine in an effort to put an end to their nearly 16-month-old war. The leaders of Comoros, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, Egypt’s prime minister, and top envoys from the Republic of Congo and Uganda were among the seven.
The African leaders will go to St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday to meet with Putin.
African leaders’ first-ever peace mission to Ukraine follows other peace attempts, including one from China.
Following their Friday afternoon meeting behind closed doors, Zelenskyy and the four other African heads of state or government, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said that “this conflict is negatively affecting Africa.”
The trip is considered as being extremely essential because a number of African countries, in varied degrees, depend on food and fertilizer shipments from Russia and Ukraine, whose war has jeopardized and hampered exports from one of the most significant breadbaskets in the world.
“I do think Ukrainians have a strong sense of duty to struggle and persevere. The path to peace is very difficult, Ramaphosa continued.
We even told President Zelenskyy today that we respect how Ukrainians feel about the ongoing war in addition to acknowledging their point of view. But we also stressed the importance of ending this war as soon as possible.
After the meeting with the group of African leaders, Zelenskyy spoke to media and said, “I clearly said several times at our meeting that to allow any negotiations with Russia now that the occupier is on our land is to freeze the war, to freeze pain and suffering.”
Additionally, he stated that only after Moscow withdraws its forces from Ukrainian land that it will be feasible to hold peace negotiations with Moscow.
“We need genuine peace, and as a result, a genuine Russian troop withdrawal from our entire independent land.”
“Free the prisoners,”
When Comoros President Azali Assoumani mentioned a “road map” to peace, the news conference’s atmosphere turned hostile. Zelenskyy asked for explanation and insisted he didn’t want “any surprises” from their meeting with Putin.
Then, Zelenskyy pleaded with them to aid in the release of political prisoners from Crimea, which Russia unlawfully occupied in 2014.
Could you kindly request that Russia release the political prisoners? stated Zelenskyy. Perhaps this will be a significant outcome of your mission and your “road map”
According to South Africa’s News 24, the argument started after a charter plane carrying journalists and presidential security touched down in the Polish capital on Thursday afternoon from Johannesburg.
While the jet is apparently still in Warsaw, Ramaphosa, who arrived on a another flight, had to take a train to Kyiv with an unknown number of security people.
When the South Africans arrived at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, a second charter plane that was reportedly scheduled to carry them to a meeting with the president in the south of Poland before he traveled to Kyiv failed to show up to pick them up.
“It’s unclear who the service provider is who was supposed to provide the second charter plane.”
South African media on the ground reported that the Polish authorities forbade the South African security officers from leaving the aircraft and threatened to seize 13 containers containing guns and equipment.
Ramaphosa’s security chief, General Wally Rhoode, summoned a press conference on the tarmac in response.
According to the news source EWN, he said that Polish authorities were “delaying us” and committing “racism.” “They’re endangering the life of our president because we could have arrived in Kiev this afternoon,” the president said.
