Dmytro Kuleba
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday that discussions to end the war with Russia could not begin with a cease-fire.
In an online conference with African media, he said, “If anyone thinks they should freeze the conflict and then see how to solve it, they don’t understand it”.
More than 100 rounds of dialogue and cease-fire negotiations since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, he claims, have only resulted in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “A delegation of African heads of state is planning to visit Ukraine and Russia in the next few days hope to persuade them to end hostilities”.
He stated on Wednesday that no date for the mission has been set.
Such a proposal implies that Russian forces would remain on Ukrainian soil even when peace talks begin.
Ukraine previously stated that Russian forces should withdraw before such talks could begin, while Moscow demands that Kyiv accept Russian sovereignty over Crimea as a precondition for talks.
Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who was not present at the most recent United Nations vote condemning Russia in February this year, leads the movement.
Comoros Islands President Othman Ghazali, the current African Union chairman, was just appointed to the delegation.
It also includes Egyptian presidents Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Zambian Hakainde Hichilema, both of whom voted in favor of the resolution, as well as Congo Republic’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Ugandan Yoweri Museveni, both of whom abstained, as did South Africa.
Kuleba has been on a charm offensive in Africa, where 30 of the 54 African U.N. member states voted in favor of the resolution condemning Russia’s incursion.
Kuleba stated, “What we see in our relations with the continent right now is fair to call a Ukrainian-African Renaissance”.
He had no idea what the African peace mission entailed, but he accepted it nonetheless.
“We are excited to welcome these presidents in Kyiv”, Kuleba added.
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