South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation has confirmed that a peace mission of six African leaders, including the country's President Cyril Ramaphosa, will travel to Moscow and Kiev as early as June to encourage peace talks in order to end the 15-month conflict between the two sides.
"In early June, the six heads of state will be shuttling between the two capitals [Moscow and Kyiv] to engage in the facility roll and at least get to a ceasefire," said Zane Dangor, the department's director-general. "This initiative has been shared with the UN Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres] who has expressed his support, and we will also engage with other actors, including the US. We should watch the space, this initiative will continue."
Together with President Ramaphosa, Dangor told a briefing of the SA Parliament's Portfolio Committee on International Relations that the African peace mission would consist of Zambia's Hakainde Hichilema, Senegal's Macky Sall, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, Egypt's Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the Republic of Congo's Denis Sassou Nguesso.
The South African official also noted that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, in telephone conversations with President Ramaphosa, expressed their willingness to receive the African delegation seeking to participate in the settlement of the 15-month armed hostilities between the two neighboring nations.
Earlier in the week, Ramaphosa said during a joint press conference with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that discussions on the possible involvement of African states in the peace process in Ukraine had been going on for "a number of months" with the help of various facilitators, including the Brazzaville Foundation, an independent organization that focuses on developing initiatives, primarily in Africa, in the areas of conflict prevention and resolution.
"Principal to our discussions are efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the devastating conflict in Ukraine, its cost in human lives and impact on the African continent," Ramaphosa said on Tuesday.