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Little can be expected from the visit of the leaders of African countries to Ukraine. Their leaders do not know the real picture of the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. It is important for Kyiv to expand international platforms in order to convey its position. This was announced today, June 18, on the air of FREEDOM TV channel, Doctor of Political Sciences Ihor Petrenko.
“We have quite a lot of different so-called peacemaking initiatives. And in principle, we did not particularly expect anything good from the visit of the African leaders, because according to their rhetoric before this visit, according to their rhetoric directly at the press conference, everyone clearly saw a certain surprise of our president when they started talking about the existence of some road maps that they will discuss with Putin. Apparently, they did not have the spirit to discuss these road maps with Zelenskyi. Here, verbal and non-verbal communication was very eloquent on the part of President Zelensky,” he said.
The political scientist reminded that the African leaders ignored the situation that developed on the day and hour of their visit to Kyiv. Namely, missile fire.
“Let’s say a big greeting from Putin, which he conveyed – six cruise missiles, six “Daggers” were sent directly to Kyiv. Then they sat and looked at Putin in love when they were in St. Petersburg, listened to his delusions, plus it was clear from their rhetoric that they did not distinguish at all who is the aggressor country, who is waging a just war, who is defending, how the Russian Federation behaves. I think that they didn’t understand much from Buchi, probably unfortunately,” says Petrenko.
In his opinion, it is obvious that they were just pursuing their certain interests, mostly mercantile.
“On the one hand, it is important for them to get grain from Ukraine, and on the other hand, they need fertilizers from the Russian Federation. And from the third, we see that African countries are trying to take some place in geopolitics. And, of course, the biggest conflict in the XXI century, which in fact has such an echo throughout the world, they tried to make a point here that we are not standing somewhere aside, we are also interested. But this is very, very unpragmatic and non-utopian rhetoric that both sides must take steps, etc. Ukraine did not take any steps on February 24 and did not provoke anyone before that. This is the mother part. And as we have seen, the leaders of African countries do not know motherhood at all, they do not know the word at all. And this certainly affects their rhetoric. Were they able to take something away from the visit to Kyiv? According to their rhetoric and statements in Moscow, obviously, no, they could not,” said the doctor of political sciences.
Ukrainian diplomacy is currently conducting active work, communication with African countries, in particular. Kyiv is improving certain platforms through which it can communicate its position.
“Therefore, in general, we could not refuse the leaders of the African Union to come to Ukraine and talk with them. And, most likely, we will not be able to refuse some such initiatives, etc., since it is an opportunity to convince, to convey our position, to show something, to establish some kind of communication, maybe even some kind of personal relationship, etc. So in general it is really very important. As we can see, unfortunately, such visits do not always end productively. Perhaps the leaders of African countries were imprisoned from the very beginning, and their peace initiatives were more in tune with the Kremlin or even provoked by the Kremlin,” added Petrenko.
He emphasized that Ukraine’s task is to show that it will rely on the peace formula presented by President Zelensky. For countries that use the Kremlin’s rhetoric, Ukraine should use the politics of persuasion.
“Now the Kremlin is actively starting to talk about diplomacy, to say that ‘we have already completed demilitarization.’ That is, they understand that the situation is quite bad for them on the battlefield. Economic and sanction pressure continues and grows on the Russian Federation, so not everything is so good. And they begin to look for ways to jump out of this whole situation while saving face. Therefore, they provoke other countries, countries that depend on them to push the issue of peace and some kind of negotiations, etc. Therefore, unfortunately, we will hear this for a long time. But our task is to prove and show that we should rely on the peace formula presented by President Zelensky, which also takes into account the global context,” the political scientist explained.
Ukrainians have already proven that they deserve to be heard.
“And we will determine what a fair end to the war is. Our partners are talking about it – the Americans, the British, and our NATO partners are all talking about it. Therefore, I think that in time we will be able to convince everyone else. There may still be more light initiatives towards the Russian Federation, and we need to be ready for this and present our arguments,” Ihor Petrenko summarized.
