By Chris Muhizi for MCN News Saturday June 17th/2023
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led an African head of states and representatives group to Ukraine on a peace mission, but they were welcomed with explosions and ordered to take cover in bunkers as airstrikes hit the city of Kyiv.
As the leaders got ready to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday in an effort to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion over Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said the strike was thwarted by air defenses.
African leaders were only arriving in the capital when Russia launched its missile attack, according to Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian Presidency Office, on Friday.
“Putin wants to show that he is willing to neglect the safety of foreign leaders because he feels absolutely unaccountable. And anybody can join.
The peace project was described by Ramaphosa’s office as “the first time that Africa is united behind the resolution of a conflict outside of our continent, and where you have a group of African heads of state and government traveling together in an attempt to find a path to peace to this conflict.”
After the South African president paid a courtesy visit to President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, Poland, the entourage was not permitted to disembark until more than 24 hours later.
After meeting with African leaders in Kyiv on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared that peace negotiations with Russia would only be feasible following Moscow’s withdrawal of its military from Ukrainian territory under occupation.
Zelenskiy also said that he could not comprehend what the leaders would stand to gain from their meeting with Vladimir Putin on Saturday in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
Despite the African delegation’s aspirations of mediating a resolution to the conflict that has raged since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelenskiy’s remarks indicated that Ukraine’s long-held position on peace talks has not changed.
“To allow talks with Russia now while the enemy is on our land is to freeze the war, to lock everything: misery and pain,” Zelenskiy said at a joint press meeting with the delegation.
According to Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, the leaders came “to share the African viewpoint” and considered talks with Russia as a necessary component of their mission.
The entourage, which included the presidents of Senegal, Egypt, Zambia, South Africa, and the Comoros, arrived in Kyiv to a barrage of Russian missiles before meeting Zelenskiy.