African leaders plan peace mission to Ukraine and Russia, defying skeptics

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As many as seven African presidents are heading to Ukraine and Russia next week on a mission they call “the road to peace.” Their goal is to find out what it would take to lure the two warring countries to a peace summit, with South Africa as the possible host.

The peace mission is driven by African concern about the soaring economic cost inflicted by the war, including rising food prices that have caused suffering across the continent. But it is also driven by a desire by several African leaders – including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa – to show that they are genuinely non-aligned on the Ukraine conflict, rather than favouring Moscow as many critics allege.

Analysts are skeptical of their chances of success. Ukrainian leaders have reacted coolly to the African mission, saying it lacks any specifics so far. They are insisting that the African proposal must fit into the basics of Ukraine’s own peace plan, which rejects any immediate ceasefire that would “freeze” the conflict.

The peace mission is currently scheduled to begin next Friday in Kyiv, where the African presidents would meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The following day they would travel to the Russian city of St. Petersburg to meet President Vladimir Putin.

The war in Ukraine has “serious implications for us, in terms of the cost of living [and] food security,” South African minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told a media briefing on Thursday.

“Our non-alignment is because we are in pursuit of peace, and we’re not in pursuit of peace as spectators,” she said. “If we are serious about the ending of that conflict, we must be receptive to the possibility of South Africa hosting the peace summit here. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I’m saying we must prepare ourselves.”

In addition to Mr. Ramaphosa, other African leaders in the mission are Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni; Senegalese President Macky Sall; Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema; Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso; and Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who is also the current chairperson of the African Union. They are expected to be joined by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“We want to listen to both sides,” Mr. Ramaphosa said earlier this week after an online meeting of the African leaders to discuss the mission.

“They need to outline to us their own perspective on the war, as well as what are their minimum requirements for bringing the conflict to an end.”

An Egyptian presidential spokesman, Ahmed Fahmy, said in a statement this week that the African leaders had agreed that “Africa has a firm interest to work toward an end to this conflict, given its enormous negative effects on African countries and the rest of the world in a number of vital sectors, such as food and energy security and international finance.”

Mr. Putin, who is organizing a separate Russia-Africa summit in July with all the African leaders invited, has seemed eager to meet the African presidents. But the Ukrainian government has been more cautious, urging the African leaders to support a separate Ukrainian peace plan.

“The war is taking place on Ukrainian soil. Ukrainians are suffering the most, and therefore we think it is fair for the Ukrainian peace formula to be at the core of the peace effort,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told African journalists in a briefing this week. “We therefore call on all African nations to join in the implementation of this formula.”

The African leaders have not disclosed any specific peace plan to Ukraine so far, Mr. Kuleba said. While his government sees “value” in talking with them, any peace plan must fit with the basic principles of Ukraine’s own peace formula, which rejects the “freezing” of the current situation, he said.

The African peace mission is being facilitated by a non-profit group, the Brazzaville Foundation, founded by wealthy French commodities trader Jean-Yves Ollivier, who played a role in some of the early negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.

In a sign of the uphill struggle that they face, the African leaders have already seen their mission delayed repeatedly. As early as February, the Brazzaville Foundation said it had been working on the peace mission for months..

Last week, Mr. Ollivier tweeted that the peace mission would be held on June 8 and 9, but within hours he had deleted the tweet. The Brazzaville Foundation did not explain why the tweet was deleted.

Greg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, a South African think tank, said there are “grave doubts” about the peace mission’s chances of success. “There is some risk of it backfiring badly,” he said in a commentary last week after meeting Ukrainian officials in Kyiv.

He quoted a Ukrainian MP, Hryhoriy Nemyria, as saying that the African initiative is “doomed to fail” because it would support a ceasefire that allows Russia to continue occupying 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory. “This is unacceptable to Ukrainians,” Mr. Nemyria told Mr. Mills.