KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A delegation of leaders and senior officials from Africa has arrived in Ukraine, seeking ways to end the country’s nearly 16-month war of aggression with Russia and ensure food and fertilizer deliveries across its continent. But an airstrike in Kiev reminded him of the challenges he faces during his Friday trip.
The delegation, including the presidents of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia and the Comoros Islands, first visited the Kiev suburb of Bucha, where civilian bodies strewn the streets after Russian troops abandoned a campaign to seize the capital last year and withdrew from the region Were. ,
The delegation’s stop in Bucha was symbolically important, as the city’s name stands for the brutality of Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Russian occupation of Bucha killed hundreds of civilians in the streets and in mass graves. Some showed signs of torture.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to hold separate meetings with members of the African peacekeeping mission.
The delegation was due to travel to St Petersburg later on Friday, where Russia’s top international economic conference is being held, and meet Putin on Saturday. It includes senior officials from Uganda, Egypt, the Republic of Congo as well as South Africa, Zambia, Senegal and Comoros.
While in Bucha, visitors place memorial candles at a small memorial outside St Andrew’s Church, near one of the spots where a mass grave was discovered.
From right, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Comoros Azali Assoumani Federation and Senegal’s President Macky Sall attend a commemoration ceremony at the site of a mass grave in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 16, 2023 (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Shortly after, air raid sirens rang out in the Ukrainian capital. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported the explosion in the Podilsky district, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.
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. No information has been given about where he was shot.
Officials who helped lay the groundwork for the delegation’s talks said the African leaders aimed not only to start a peace process, but also to assess whether fertilizer exports to Russia, which is under heavy international sanctions can be paid for, which Africa desperately needs.
They are also set to discuss the issue of ensuring more grain shipments from Ukraine during the war and the possibility of more prisoner exchanges.
“Life is universal, and we must protect life — Ukrainian life, Russian life, global life,” Zambian President Hakinde Hichilema told The Associated Press. “Volatility anywhere is volatility everywhere.”
The African peace offer comes as Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to drive Kremlin’s forces out of occupied territories, using Western-supplied advanced weapons in attacks along a 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line. Western analysts and military officials have cautioned that the operation could be a long one.
A sapper inspects a damaged Russian self-propelled artillery vehicle installed as a war symbol in central Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, June 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukasky)
In late February, China presented its own peace proposal but it appeared to have little chance of success. Ukraine and its allies have largely rejected the plan, and the war shows no signs of getting closer to a ceasefire.
In a statement on Friday, Andrey Kovalev, a spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said Ukrainian troops made breakthroughs in three parts of the front line in the south and east of the country.
According to Kovalev, Ukrainian forces advanced further east on the border between Zaporizhzhya and Donetsk provinces, south of the city of Orekhiv in Zaporizhzhya province, in the direction of the village of Robotyn, as well as around Levadne and Stromayorske.
Kovalev said Ukrainian forces had also advanced on some areas around Vuhladar, a mining town in Donetsk, which was one of the main tank battles so far in the war.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
Russian shelling killed two civilians and wounded two others on Thursday and overnight in southern Ukraine’s flood-hit Kherson region, where a large dam was destroyed last week, according to the region’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin.
Prokudin said the Russian military launched 54 attacks across the province in the past day, using mortars, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, drones, missiles and aircraft.
Flood waters continued to recede in the Kherson region, with an average level of 1.67 meters (about 5 feet) in flood-affected areas. According to the Ukrainian President’s Office, it is down to 5 meters (16 ft) shortly after the Kakhovka Dam breached last Tuesday.
