Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Macky Sall of Senegal, Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, and Azali Assoumani of Comoros are among the African leaders who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. Their relations with Russia are “mixed,” according to Gulliver Cragg, Ukraine correspondent for FRANCE 24.
He said that although Ramaphosa has said he is looking into the claims, South Africa’s official position is that it does not give weapons to Russia. “South Africa certainly has a history of close relations with Russia and has been accused recently of supplying weapons to Russia,” he added.
On the other hand, Zambia voted in favour of a resolution last year to denounce Russia for its invasion of Ukraine “along with about half of the countries in Africa”, while many others abstained.
According to Cragg, “the general impression is that African countries really want to be seen as neutral.”
It’s more likely that they’ll succeed in improving the terms under which grain may be exported to Africa than in actually persuading Russia and Ukraine to hold peace negotiations, which is their claimed primary goal.
