Ukraine asks Africa to help push Russia to agree to a ceasefire

Ukrainian officials are hoping that African voices will help end the 40-month-old war.

- By Peter Fabricius

Ukraine does not ask much from Africa. Mainly just more principled votes at the UN condemning Russia's invasion.

But now, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has issued a ceasefire appeal through African journalists visiting Ukraine in a brief respite between missile and drone attacks on the capital, Kyiv, and other cities.

He noted that Ukraine had accepted the US proposal for an unconditional, full ceasefire. “Now we need to pressure Russia to say unconditional yes and to accept a ceasefire... That is why it is also important to support our peace efforts from your countries, from your capitals,” Sybiha told the journalists.

Just before we arrived in Kyiv on a study tour, hundreds of projectiles had hit the city on 17 June. A few days later we visited the epicentre of that attack, an apartment building in the Solomianskyi district that had taken a direct missile hit, killing 23 civilians and injuring 27 more.

Workers were clearing rubble. They were joined by two boys, aged about 11 and wearing hard hats, who had volunteered to help their neighbours. An elderly woman sat on a bench in the grounds, quietly weeping.

Tsiupko Mykola, the deputy head of the local emergency services, said 13 surrounding buildings had also been damaged, including a kindergarten. So far none of the dead seemed to be children, “but there are several unidentified bodies still”, so they didn’t know for sure.