African peace mission meets with Putin, Zelenskyy: Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry joined leaders and officials from six other African countries on a mission to Kyiv and then Moscow over the weekend to call for an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to separate Ittihadiya statements (here and here). The delegation met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, according to a Kremlin statement, having met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv the day before.

Ten-point plan for peace: In a speech in Moscow, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa laid out the mission’s ten points to resolve the conflict, which include mutual de-escalation and entering negotiations to end the conflict, Bloomberg reports. “We are convinced that the time has come for both sides to start negotiations and end this war,” Ramaphosa said. He called for a reopening of the Black Sea — a crucial trade route for the export of Ukrainian and Russian grain, on which many African nations rely for their food security.

The warring parties were not convinced: Zelenskyy reiterated to the mission Ukraine’s stance that it will not negotiate until Russia withdraws all of its troops from Ukrainian territories. Putin took issue during the meeting with the argument that the conflict was threatening African food security, Reuters reports, instead blaming the West for rising global food prices. A spokesperson for the Russian president later said that while he had “shown interest in considering it,” the African peace plan would be “very difficult” to implement.

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