Ukraine peace plan on agenda at major Russia-Africa summit – Kremlin
African leaders seeking to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine will meet with President Vladimir Putin at an upcoming summit in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
The Russia-Africa economic and humanitarian summit will take place July 27-28. The first gathering in Sochi in 2019 was attended by more than 40 heads of states, according to the organizers.
“The summit program is still in the works. However, there will definitely be an opportunity to have a discussion on the sidelines [of the event],” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Russian news agency TASS earlier cited diplomatic sources as saying that members of the African peace mission, including South Africa, Egypt, Zambia, Senegal, Uganda, the Comoros, and the Republic of Congo, were seeking a meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg.
African leaders visited Ukraine and Russia last month, where they presented a ten-point roadmap to end the hostilities between the two countries, calling on both sides to de-escalate.
While Putin welcomed the mediation efforts, he blamed Kiev for the breakdown in peace negotiations in the spring of 2022, saying that Ukraine rejected a preliminary agreement reached in Türkiye that year.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky expressed skepticism about the prospects of the African leaders’ trip to Russia in June. He reiterated that Ukraine will be ready for negotiations only after Moscow surrenders Crimea and four other regions that had voted to leave Ukraine and become parts of Russia. Officials in Moscow have said that the demands are unacceptable.
