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Added on the 16/06/2023 10:31:42 - Copyright : Euronews EN
As Ukraine's counteroffensive gathers steam, peace mediators from a continent that counts on grain and fertilizer imports from Kyiv and Moscow: the presidents of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia and the Comoros leading a delegation to the Ukrainian capital before traveling on to Saint Petersburg Saturday to meet Vladimir Putin. After their tour of the scene of last year's war crimes when the Russians occupied the northern suburb of Bucha, air raid sirens sounded in the capital. The South African president's security detail was held up in Warsaw amid a feud that was nominally about weapons permits. His entourage stuck on the tarmac for 24 hours. South Africa's been accused of supplying weapons to Russia while Poland's one of Ukraine's staunchest allies.
On the same day as a peace mission of African leaders was set to meet Ukraine's president, air raid sirents went off in the capital Kyiv. Earlier that delegation visited Bucha, a suburb where Russian occupying forces were accused of commint war crimes, massacring hundres of civilians over a year ago. They will meet with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, and then meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg on Saturday. Govts in Africa have been divided over the war, some backing Kyiv, others have remained neutral or leaned towards Moscow. FRANCE 24's Jean Emile Jammine explains.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Moscow is "carefully" examining proposals made by some African leaders to end the conflict in Ukraine. "We respect your initiatives and we are examining them carefully," Putin said on the second day of a Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg.
It's the second Russia-Africa summit since 2019. But on the eve of the event the number of attending heads of state had shrunk from 43 to 17, a drop that the Kremlin blamed on Western interference.
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