Egyptian prime minister Mostafa Madbouly met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on 16 June, as part of a delegation of African leaders exploring possible peace initiatives in the Russia-Ukraine War. The following day, the delegation visited Russian president Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg to discuss the same issue. The peace mission aimed to use a decidedly neutral third-party, African nations, to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. China organized a similar proposal in February, but it was dismissed by Ukraine and its allies. South African president Cyril Ramaphosa described the campaign as “the first time that Africa is united behind the resolution of a conflict outside our continent, and where you have a group of African heads of state and governments traveling together in an attempt to find a path to peace to this conflict.” Ramaphosa also said that he will not “take sides in a contest between global powers,” emphasizing the trend of neutrality across Africa and Asia in the Russia-Ukraine War. Egypt had voted in favor of a UN resolution condemning Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine and demanding its withdrawal from Ukrainian territory in March 2022….
