South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Ukraine on Friday as part of a group of African leaders seeking to broker peace between Kyiv and Moscow, officials said.
Four presidents and three representatives are due to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv before heading to Saint Petersburg on Saturday to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
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A Ukrainian serviceman of the 43rd Artillery Brigade works inside a 155 mm self-propelled howitzer Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000), towards Russian positions at a front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region on June 15, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov / AFP)
The high-profile diplomatic team hopes to bring to the table the voice of a continent that has been badly hit by rising grain prices and the wider impact on global trade since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has arrived at the Nemichaeve train station,” the South African presidency tweeted.
Ramaphosa will be joined by Senegal’s Macky Sall and Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema, plus Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who currently heads the African Union.
Three other leaders who had been due to join the trip — Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Congo-Brazzaville’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso — have pulled out of the visit and have sent other representatives instead.