African leaders begin a peace mission to Ukraine and Russia

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Cyril Ramaphosa recently vowed that Africa would never become a “pawn” between East and West again, referring to proxy conflicts on the Cold War-era continent.

Now the South African president is looking to prevent a replay of history by joining an ambitious delegation of continental leaders seeking to broker a European peace deal and end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The group, which also includes leaders from Egypt, the Republic of Congo, Senegal, Zambia, Uganda and Comoros, will hold talks on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before traveling to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin.

The mission is framed as deriving its legitimacy and urgency from the war’s impact on global food and fertilizer prices. Although African leaders had different positions on the Russian invasion, they all sought to assert their neutrality in a war not of their making.

Macky Sall, President of Senegal, said: “We do not want to be aligned with this conflict. It is very clear that we want peace… This is the African position.”

Ukraine has made great efforts to attract Africa, but it fears any initiative that seeks to preserve Russia’s territorial gains under the guise of a cease-fire.

“We are ready to explain the nature of the war and why, without a just end in which Russia would bear strict legal sanctions, the war will be without end,” said Mykhailo Podolac, an advisor to Zelensky’s government. “The indisputable basis for a peace settlement…is the complete withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces [forces],” he added.

The African leaders’ visit comes as Russia increasingly views countries in the “Global South” as a way out of Western sanctions and invasion condemnation. It has strong ties with many African countries dating back to the Soviet era and has sought to leverage them to find support for its position.

Indeed, Ramaphosa and his ruling African National Congress have come under sharp international criticism for their close ties to the Kremlin. The South African president was forced to deny allegations by the US ambassador last month that Pretoria had shipped weapons to Moscow.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said this week that the peace initiative was “very important” and that African leaders were also likely to discuss the deadlocked deal to export Ukraine’s grain. African leaders want regular grain supplies to the continent. “The Istanbul agreement did not succeed in securing this,” Ushakov said.

He was referring to the Turkey-brokered agreement that Russia has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from for the second time, after doing so briefly last fall.

“The issue of food security is very serious for Africa,” said Chidi Odinkalo of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts. “Whether African leaders have any significant leverage to exercise is another matter entirely.”

The Kremlin also invited African leaders to a summit with Putin in St. Petersburg next month, the first since 43 heads of state traveled to Sochi for the previous session in 2019.

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Alexander Jaboyev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the Kremlin would take advantage of such visits to push its claim that it is the one seeking to end the Ukraine war.

“Russia is becoming more and more isolated, so Putin needs to show African countries that Russia is ready to talk, and only the United States is preventing Moscow and Kiev from coming to the negotiating table,” he said.

Podolak warned the Ukrainian against attempts at sophistry. He said, “Many are trying to devise new formulas for a ‘peaceful settlement’, but they stubbornly do not see where the beginning of the war lies and the keys to its end.”

“Kiev does not need to be persuaded to peace, because we did not want and did not start this war.”

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