Africa Leaders Hold Peace Talks with President Putin of the Russian Federation

Africa Leaders hold peace talks with President Putin of the Russian Federation as part of the Africa Peace Initiative.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting with a delegation of African leaders and senior officials in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, June 17, 2023. 

Seven African leaders — namely, the presidents of Comoros, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, as well as Egypt’s prime minister and top envoys from the Republic of Congo and Uganda, visited Ukraine on Friday to try in bring peace and end the war that has spanned over 15 months.

After holding the meeting with Ukraine's top leadership, the African leaders later traveled to St. Petersburg on Saturday to meet with Putin who was attending Russia’s international economic forum. Present at the venue, Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov said after the three-hour meeting that the Africans’ peace plan consisted of 10 elements, although nothing “was not formulated on paper.”

“The peace initiative proposed by African countries is very difficult to implement, difficult to compare positions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. But ”President Putin has shown interest in considering it.”

Speaking in the meeting, Russian President Putin welcome the peace talks and said that they certainly look forward for a peaceful outcome at the earliest for the best interests of everyone involved and affected.