Cape Town - The African Peace Mission to Russia and Ukraine was already on the backfoot even before it began, because the countries embroiled in the conflict both believed they could win in the end.
This is according to two international relations experts who spoke to the Cape Times on Sunday, after a group led by President Cyril Ramaphosa and leaders from Egypt, Senegal, Zambia and the Comoros met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to mediate an end to the war.
The delegation was seeking agreement on a series of “confidence building measures”.
The visit came shortly after Ukraine last week launched the main phase of a counter-offensive to push back Russian forces from the swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine that they occupy.
The framework document, which has not been made public, states 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”.
The document lists a number of measures that could be proposed by the African leaders as part of the first stage of their engagement with the warring parties.
Those measures could include a Russian troop pull-back, removal of tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus, suspension of implementation of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant targeting Putin, and sanctions relief.
However, the initiative did not come without a few hurdles; one being president Ramaphosa’s security with a number of South African journalists being prevented from landing in Poland; and the second being claims that Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, was attempting to downplay the scale of the conflict after he told media he did not hear any noise from bombing.
During their mission, Zelenskiy said on Friday that peace talks would require Moscow to withdraw its forces from occupied Ukrainian territory.
While Putin opened Saturday's talks stressing Russia's commitment to the continent, he also told the delegation he had never refused talks with the Ukrainian side, which had been blocked by Kyiv.
Moscow has, however, repeatedly maintained any peace must allow for “new realities”, meaning its declared annexation of five Ukrainian provinces, four of which it only partially controls - a red line for Kyiv.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in televised remarks that Moscow shared the “main approaches” of the African plan, but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying it was “difficult to realise”.
Following the initiative, Ramaphosa in a video released on Sunday, said their mission was “impactful”.
“It’s real success will be measured on the ultimate objective of stopping the war but the impact it had, we were listened to as we gave an African perspective on a war that’s having negative consequences for our continent.
“Secondly (we are) probably the only group who has engaged the two leaders in such a short space of time, to put forward a very strong proposal that the war must end.
“But we also accompanied that broad proposal with a number of elements that have to do with recognition of the sovereignty of countries in terms of the UN charter.
“We spoke about the de-escalation of the conflict.
There must be de-escalation. The humanitarian assistance must get to the people who are suffering in the war, part of that must be the release of prisoners of war. As well as the release of the children, taken out of Ukraine to be returned back,” the president said.
The Africa Peace Initiative has been impactful and its ultimate success will be measured on the objective, which is stopping the war.#AfricanPeaceMission pic.twitter.com/mmZvQUe9RA
— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) June 18, 2023
He added that the opening of the Black Sea to move grains to the world markets, was necessary.
“I think the most important outcome, was one the willingness to talk to us, the other one the willingness to go through the various issues we raised and the commitment that we will engage further. As it is, the continent is going to have a summit with Russia and we will continue our discussions with President Putin then. In the intervening period we’ll also talk to President Zelenskiy to hear his response to a number of the issues we raised. Overall as much as this was not going to end the war, (we were) the first ones to see them (not) jointly, but one after the other.
Their agreement that they’re willing to engage with African leaders, Africa is in the frame, we participating positively without trying to diminish. We’re also talking to UN secretary general including many other world leaders,” said Ramaphosa.
Wits University,international relations Professor, John Stremlau, said in his view the conflict was not yet ripe for resolution.
“What Ramaphosa did was planted a flag of African interests and concern to remind the world Africa is suffering.
“It was (a) fact-finding mission. Realistically, they only spent one day in Kyiv, one day in St Petersburg. These are highly complex negotiations that would require more time,” said Stemlau.
Conflict resolution expert and director at RiskRecon, Dr Kingsley Makhubela added that while they could not be blamed for trying, the writing was on the wall that the talks would not succeed in ending the war.
“The timing was wrong because Ukraine started the counter, amassed almost everything to re-take Russian occupied territory.
“It is at the height of the conflict, when both sides are buoyant thinking they would win. The timing of the mission was irrelevant given the conditions. Countries supporting Ukraine needed to underwrite this mission.
“The president spoke about de-escalating the conflict, but the US is planning to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. I don’t know what they thought they would achieve, I wouldn’t have advised to go there. A mutually hurting stalemate does not exist, both sides still think they can win militarily,” said Makhubela.
He added that the mission was ill-conceived as there were many conflicts in Africa that needed resolution, citing the war in Sudan.
“They are nowhere to be seen in Africa, with so many areas of conflict. But because it involved the west, for Europeans they rush there, leave countries in their backyard in wars they cannot resolve.”
Cape Times