Explosions rock Kyiv as African leaders meet

As a group of African officials, including Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Azali Assoumani of the Union of Comoros, came to Ukraine as part of an African peace mission, explosions shook Kyiv.

The latest in a string of unexpected developments as the mission gets underway was the sound of air raid sirens in the Ukrainian capital as the visit got underway.

The leaders sought cover in a bomb bunker before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday and travelling to Russia on Saturday for discussions with President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.

"Putin ‘builds confidence’ by launching the largest missile attack on Kyiv in weeks, exactly amid the visit of African leaders to our capital,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter afterwards. “Russian missiles are a message to Africa: Russia wants more war, not peace.”

Ahead of time, the South African presidency published a video showing Ramaphosa arriving by rail from Poland in the Bucha region close to Kyiv.

A delegation led by Ramaphosa comprises Assoumani, officials from Zambia, Senegal, and the prime minister of Egypt.

The tour was also supposed to include the presidents of Uganda, the Republic of the Congo, and Egypt, Yoweri Museveni, Denis Nguesso, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, but instead, they sent delegates instead.

According to a draft framework paper seen by the Reuters news agency, the peace mission may suggest a number of "confidence-building measures" during the earliest phases of mediation.

The document stated that the objective of the mission is “to promote the importance of peace and to encourage the parties to agree to a diplomacy-led process of negotiations”.

Its actions might entail a Russian retreat, the evacuation of tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus, and the postponement of the execution of an order for Putin's arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.

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