PUTIN, AFRICAN LEADERS DISCUSS UKRAINE PEACE

Russians: Proposed initiatives would be ‘difficult’ to carry out

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday met with a group of leaders of African countries who traveled to Russia on a self-styled “peace mission” the day after they went to Ukraine, but the meeting ended with no visible progress.

The seven African leaders — 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 to help end the war.

The African leaders then traveled to St. Petersburg on Saturday to meet with Putin, who was attending Russia’s showpiece international economic forum.

Details about the delegation’s proposals were thin.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the threehour meeting that the Africans’ peace plan consisted of 10 elements, but “was not formulated on paper.”

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

“He spoke about our position. Not all provisions can be correlated with the main elements of our position, but this does not mean that we do not need to continue working,” Peskov said.

“The main conclusion, in my opinion, from today’s conversation is that our partners from the African Union have shown an understanding of the true causes of the crisis that was created by the West, and have shown an understanding that it is necessary to get out of this situation on the basis of addressing these underlying causes,” Lavrov said.

Russia says that it was effectively forced to send troops into Ukraine because it was threatened by Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and by the country’s support from the United States and Western Europe.

Speaking at the economic forum on Friday, Putin declared that the first Russian tactical nuclear weapons have been deployed to Belarus, describing the move as a deterrent against Western efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine. He previously said that the deployment would begin in July.

Asked if he could order the use of battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Putin said that there was no need for that but noted that Moscow could use its nuclear arsenals in case of a “threat to the Russian statehood.”

“In that case, we will certainly use all the means that the Russian state has. There should be no doubt about that,” he said.

The mission to Ukraine, the first of its kind by African leaders, comes in the wake of other peace initiatives — such as one by China — and carries particular importance for Africa, which relies on food and fertilizer deliveries from Russia and Ukraine. The war has impeded exports from one of the world’s most important breadbaskets.

“This conflict is affecting Africa negatively,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said at a news conference alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and four other African leaders after their closeddoor talks on Friday.

Ramaphosa and others acknowledged the intensity of the hostilities but insisted all wars must come to an end and emphasized their willingness to help expedite that.