© Reuters. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 16, 2023. Ramil Sitdikov / Photo Host Agency RIA Novosti via REUTERS
(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday boycotted opening remarks by African leaders seeking to mediate in the Ukraine conflict to offer a list of reasons why he believes many of their proposals are misguided.
Putin first welcomed the leaders of Senegal, Egypt, Zambia, Uganda, the Republic of the Congo, the Comoros and South Africa to the 18th-century Konstantinovsky Palace on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, affirming Russia’s commitment to the continent.
But after presentations by the leaders of Comoros, Senegal and South Africa, he stepped in to challenge the plan’s assumptions before the all-act round of comments went any further.
Putin reiterated his position that Ukraine and the West had started the conflict long before Russia sent its armed forces across the border in February last year.
He said the West, not Russia, was to blame for the sharp rise in global food prices early last year.
He told the delegation that Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports that Russia had allowed over the past year had done nothing to alleviate Africa’s difficulties with soaring food prices because it had largely gone to rich countries.
He said that Russia has never refused to hold talks with the Ukrainian side, which Kiev has prevented.
The African plan includes a call for all children caught up in the conflict to go back to where they came from, but Putin said Russia is not preventing any Ukrainian children from returning home.
“We got them out of the conflict zone, we saved their lives,” he said.
African leaders are seeking to agree a series of “confidence-building measures” even as Ukraine last week launched a counter-offensive to expel Russian forces from occupied Ukrainian territory.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa outlined the ten points of the African initiative, after Comoros President Azali Assoumani, the current chair of the African Union, told Putin:
“We have come here to listen to you, and through you the Russian people, and encourage you to enter into negotiations with Ukraine in order to put an end to this difficult ordeal.
“We entrusted ourselves with this task because, unfortunately, we as Africans have had to manage many conflicts, and through dialogue and negotiation we have succeeded in resolving them.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after meeting leaders in Kiev on Friday that peace talks with Russia would be possible only after Moscow withdraws its forces from occupied Ukrainian lands.
He added that he could not understand what could be achieved from the delegation’s meeting with Putin.
Putin said that Russia “is open to constructive dialogue with anyone who wants to establish peace on the basis of principles of justice and recognition of the legitimate interests of the parties.”
However, Russia has repeatedly said that any settlement must take into account the “new realities”, namely its declared annexation of five Ukrainian provinces, four of which it only partially controls.
(This story has been corrected to fix the attribution of later quotations to Assoumani, not Ramaphosa, in paragraph 11)
