Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after meeting African leaders in Kyiv on Friday that peace talks with Russia would be possible only after Moscow withdraws its forces from occupied Ukrainian territory.
And Zelenskiy said he failed to understand what could be gained from the leaders meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in St Petersburg, Russia’s second city.
“[T]his is their decision, how logical it is, I don’t really understand,” he told reporters.
Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, President of the Union of Comoros Azali Assoumani, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Egypt’s Prime Minister Mustafa Madbuly visit a site of a mass grave, in the town of Bucha, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, on 16th June, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko
Zelenskiy’s comments signalled no change in Ukraine’s long-held stance on peace talks, despite the African delegation’s hopes of mediating an end to the war that has raged since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
“To allow any negotiations with Russia now while the occupier is on our land is to freeze the war, to freeze everything: pain and suffering,” Zelenskiy told a joint press conference with the delegation.
UKRAINE ADVANCING IN THE SOUTH: MILITARY CHIEFS
Ukrainian forces are advancing in southern sectors of their counter-offensive against Russian occupation troops, Ukrainian military officials said on Friday.
The latest report on the counter-offensive, as well as an account of “desperate resistance” by Russian troops in the east, was issued as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said movement in the counter-offensive was “the most important thing”.
“Every soldier, every new step we take, every metre of Ukrainian land freed from the enemy is of utmost importance,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video message.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield situation. Russia has not officially acknowledged Ukrainian advances in the early stages of a counteroffensive, and said it had inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv’s forces in the previous 24 hours.
Deputy Ukrainian Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app that troops were “engaged in active moves to advance in several directions at once.
“Practically in all sectors where our units are attacking in the south, they have registered tactical successes,” Maliar said. “They are gradually moving forward. At the moment, the advance is up to two kilometres in each direction.”
In Ukraine’s east, Maliar said Russia forces were trying to dislodge Ukrainian forces from established positions.
Ukrainian forces around the devastated city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia last month, were trying to push Russian forces out from the outskirts of the town.
Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is in charge of Ukrainian ground forces, had earlier described the situation in the east as tense, with Russia bringing its best divisions into the Bakhmut sector with backup from artillery and aircraft.
“We continue to conduct offensive actions in separate directions, occupying dominant heights, and strips of forest with the aim of forcing the enemy gradually out of the outskirts of Bakhmut. Realizing this, the enemy units put up desperate resistance,” Syrskyi said on Telegram.
Bakhmut has seen some of the fiercest fighting since Russia’s February, 2022, invasion. The Ukrainian military said last week it had begun pushing back Russian forces near Bakhmut.
Kyiv said on Thursday it had regained control of about 100 square kilometres of territory in just over a week of its counteroffensive.
Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukrainian troops in the southern Tavriia sector, said there had been 36 combat engagements and 578 attacks in the past 24 hours in the sector.
“The enemy’s losses in killed and wounded amounted to more than four companies,” he wrote on Telegram. A company typically consists of 100–250 soldiers.
– OLENA HARMASG, Kyiv, Ukraine/Reuters
“We need real peace, and therefore, a real withdrawal of Russian troops from our entire independent land.”
Ukraine stood by its own peace initiative, based on a complete Russian withdrawal, but invited the African leaders to take part in an international peace summit that is being drawn up.
The delegation, including leaders of Senegal, Egypt, Zambia, South Africa and the Comoros, met Zelenskiy after being greeted in Kyiv by a volley of Russian missiles.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the leaders had come “to share the African perspective” and saw talks with Russia as part of the mission.
He recalled that South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela favoured negotiations and that “even when the conflict becomes most intense, that is when peace should be made”.
Call for free flow of grain
The President of the Comoro Islands, Azali Assoumani, current chair of the African Union, said the leaders had no right to steer clear of negotiations.
“It is not in our interest to simply do nothing. That would be cowardly,” he told reporters. “This discussion is absolutely necessary. Let me assure you: we understand your pain. We have lived through it. And we will have a discussion with Putin.”
With Kyiv and Moscow courting the Global South, the African leaders see a chance to mediate in a war that has hit African countries by disrupting grain and other food supplies and aggravating price inflation.
Ramaphosa said African countries were prepared to participate further in a peace pact in Ukraine, and called for the free flow of grain. Ukraine is a major global producer and exporter in peacetime.
African nations have largely remained neutral on the Ukraine war. Some, notably South Africa, received support from the Soviet Union for their independence movements and have cordial relations with Russia, but most have closer economic links with the United States and Europe.
The African leaders are seeking agreement on a series of “confidence building measures” even as Ukraine last week began a counteroffensive to push back Russian forces from Ukrainian territory they occupy.
The Kremlin has played down the chances of meaningful peace talks with Kyiv. It says conditions for a peace process are not in place, but that it is ready to listen and is open to outside initiatives.
– Additional reporting by ANNA PRUCHNICKA and TOM BALMFORTH in Kyiv; JOE BAVIER in Johannesburg, South Africa
