Global Courant
Kyiv, Ukraine — A delegation of leaders and senior officials from Africa arrived in Ukraine seeking ways to end the invaded country’s nearly 16-month war with Russia and ensure the supply of food and fertilizer to their continent, although an airstrike in Kiev during their trip on Friday reminded them of the challenges they face.
The delegation, made up of the presidents of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia and the Comoros, went first to Bucha, a suburb of Kiev where the bodies of civilians lay scattered in the streets last year after Russian troops launched a campaign to seize the capital. ceased and withdrew from the area. .
The delegation’s stop in Bucha was symbolically significant, as the city’s name has come to stand for the brutality of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian occupation of Bucha left hundreds of civilians dead in the streets and in mass graves. Some showed signs of torture.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to hold separate meetings with members of an African peacekeeping mission.
The delegation was scheduled to travel to St. Petersburg later Friday, where Russia’s main international economic conference is taking place, and meet with Putin on Saturday. It includes senior officials from Uganda, Egypt, the Republic of Congo, as well as South Africa, Zambia, Senegal and the Comoros.
While in Bucha, visitors placed memorial candles at a small memorial outside St. Andrew’s Church, near one of the sites where a mass grave was excavated.
Soon after, air raid sirens began to wail in the capital of Ukraine. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported an explosion in the Podilskiy district, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city.
“Russian missiles are a message to Africa: Russia wants more war, not peace,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles, six Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles and two reconnaissance drones. It gave no details of where they were shot.
Officials who laid the groundwork for the delegation’s talks said African leaders not only wanted to start a peace process, but also to assess how Russia, which is under heavy international sanctions, can be paid for the fertilizer exports that have hit Africa so hard. need.
They will also discuss the related issue of ensuring more grain is transported from Ukraine during the war 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 everywhere is instability everywhere.”
The African peace overture comes as Ukraine launches a counter-offensive to drive Kremlin troops out of occupied territories, using advanced weapons supplied by the West in attacks along its 1,000-kilometer frontline. Western analysts and military officials have warned that the campaign could take a long time.
China came up with its own peace proposal at the end of February, but seemed to have little chance of success. Ukraine and its allies have largely rejected the plan, and the warring signs look no closer to a ceasefire.
Ukrainian forces achieved successes along three sections of the frontline in the south and east of the country, Andriy Kovalev, a spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said in a statement Friday.
According to Kovalev, Ukrainian troops moved south from the town of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia province, towards the village of Robotyne, as well as around Levadne and Staromaiorske, on the border between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk province further east.
Kovalev said Ukrainian troops were also advancing in some areas around Vuhledar, a mining town in Donetsk that has seen one of the most significant tank battles of the war so far.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
Russian shelling on Thursday and overnight killed two civilians and wounded two others in the flood-stricken Kherson region of southern Ukraine, where a major dam was destroyed last week, according to the region’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin.
Russian forces launched 54 strikes across the province the previous day, using mortars, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, drones, missiles and aircraft, Prokudin said.
Floodwaters in the Kherson region have continued to fall, with the average level in flood-affected areas reaching 1.67 meters (about 5 feet). That’s a drop of 5 meters (16 feet) right after the Kakhovka dam breach last Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s presidential office.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine
(TagsToTranslate)Russia Ukraine War
