KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on a group of African leaders to ask his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to release political prisoners in Crimea and beyond, saying it could be an important part of his trip to Russia on Saturday. .
Seven African leaders — the presidents of Comoros, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, as well as the prime minister of Egypt and the top envoys of the Republic of Congo and Uganda — visited Ukraine on Friday as part of a self-styled “mission of peace” in Ukraine. and Russia to try to help end their nearly 16-month war.
The African leaders were traveling to meet Putin in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on Saturday.
The mission to Ukraine, the first of its kind by African leaders, comes on the heels of other peace initiatives such as China’s, and had additional significance for African countries, which depend on food and fertilizer deliveries from Russia and Ukraine, whose war has prevented the exports of one of the most important granaries in the world.
“This conflict is negatively affecting Africa,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told a news conference alongside Zelenskyy and the four other African heads of state or government, after the leaders met for talks behind closed doors on Friday afternoon.
Ramaphosa and others acknowledged the intensity of the fighting and animosity between Russia and Ukraine, but insisted that all wars must end, and that the delegation wants to help speed that up.
“I think Ukrainians feel they have to fight and not give up. The road to peace is very hard,” he said, adding that “this conflict must end sooner rather than later.”
The delegation, which includes President Macky Sall of Senegal and Presidents Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, represents a cross-section of African views on the war.
South Africa, Senegal and Uganda have avoided censuring Moscow over the conflict, while Egypt, Zambia and Comoros voted against Russia last year in a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Moscow’s invasion. Many African nations have long had close ties to Moscow, dating back to the Cold War when the Soviet Union supported its anti-colonial struggles.
The tenor of the press conference soured when Comoros President Azali Assoumani raised the idea of a “road map” to peace, prompting questions from Zelenskyy who asked for clarification and insisting he wanted “no surprises” from his visit to Putin.
Zelenskyy then urged them to help free political prisoners from Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
“Could I ask Russia to release political prisoners?” Zelensky said. “Perhaps this will be an important outcome of your mission, of your ‘road map’.”
Zelenskyy expressed thinly veiled frustration over his trip, saying they would hold “talks with terrorists” on Saturday.
International human rights organizations say Russia has targeted the Crimean Tatar ethnic group with arbitrary arrests and unjustified prosecutions since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Many have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
“The Russian Federation misuses its legislation for political purposes, in particular to suppress the nonviolent struggle of the Crimean Tatars and their protest against the occupation of Crimea,” the Crimean Resource Center said in a announced last year.
Ramaphosa, who outlined 10 priorities to help pave the way to ending the war, said he planned to hold a bilateral meeting with Putin, in part to discuss the Russian leader’s possible attendance at a summit planned for August. organized by South Africa, from the so-called “BRICS” countries, which also include Brazil, China and India.
The International Criminal Court in March issued an international arrest warrant for Putin over Russian abductions of Ukrainian children, which could complicate any trip by Putin to South Africa. Ramaphosa said he would only decide whether to invite the Russian leader, saying it was still “under consideration”.
Before meeting with Zelenskyy, the African leaders went to Bucha, a suburb of Kiev where the bodies of civilians were strewn on the streets last year after Russian troops abandoned a campaign to seize the capital and withdraw from the area.
The delegation’s stop in Bucha was symbolically significant, because the city has come to defend the brutality of Ukraine’s invasion of Moscow in February 2022. The Russian occupation of Bucha left hundreds of civilians dead, some with signs of of torture
While in Bucha, visitors placed memorial candles at a small memorial outside a church near where a mass grave was discovered.
On their way back to the capital, air raid sirens went off in Kiev, prompting them to return briefly to their hotel as a “precautionary measure”, Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Russian missiles are a message to Africa: Russia wants more war, not peace.”
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles, six Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles and two reconnaissance drones. He did not give details about where they were shot down.
Germany will deliver another 64 Patriot missiles to Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Friday to help protect it from Russia’s relentless airstrikes.
Officials who helped organize the delegation’s talks said the African leaders sought not only to start a peace process but also to assess how Russia, which is under heavy international sanctions, can pay for fertilizer exports that the Africa is in desperate need.
They are also set to discuss the related issue of securing more grain shipments out of Ukraine and the possibility of more prisoner exchanges.
“Life is universal and we have to protect lives: Ukrainian lives, Russian lives, global lives,” Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema told The Associated Press. “Instability anywhere is instability everywhere.”
The African peace overture comes as Ukraine launches a counteroffensive to dislodge Kremlin forces from occupied areas, using advanced Western-supplied weapons in attacks along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line. Analysts and Western military officials have warned that the campaign could go on for a long time.
China presented its own peace proposal in late February. Ukraine and its allies largely rejected the plan, and the warring sides are no closer to a ceasefire.
Ukrainian troops have scored successes in three sections of the front line in the south and east, Andriy Kovalev, spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said in a statement on Friday.
According to Kovalev, Ukrainian forces advanced south of the city of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia province, in the direction of the village of Robotyne, as well as around Levadne and Staromaiorske, on the border between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk province further to the ‘East.
Kovalev said Ukrainian troops also advanced in some areas around Vuhledar, a mining town in Donetsk that was the site of a key tank battle.
It has not been possible to independently verify the claims.
Russian airstrikes on Thursday and overnight killed two civilians and wounded two others in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, where a major dam was destroyed last week, according to the region’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin.
Russian forces the previous day launched 54 attacks across the province, using mortars, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, drones, missiles and aircraft, Prokudin said.
Floodwaters in the Kherson region have continued to recede, with the average level in flood-affected areas standing at 1.67 meters (about 5 feet), down from 5 meters (16 feet) last Tuesday, the Ukrainian presidential office said.
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AP writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed
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