MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/. In a telephone conversation South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin on his intention to continue efforts for a settlement in Ukraine. According to the Kremlin press service, the Russian president shared Moscow's fundamental assessments.
The Russian presidential press service said that "in light of the well-known peace initiative of African states for resolving the Ukrainian crisis, Cyril Ramaphosa declared South Africa's intention to keep working in this direction."
Putin in response "outlined his fundamental assessment of the situation around Ukraine, noting that Russia has always been open to a serious and substantive discussion on the political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict," the news release reads.
In the spring of 2023, Ramaphosa spoke about the African countries' initiative for settling the Ukrainian crisis and organizing negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but did not specify what exactly that initiative implied. Diplomatic sources have told TASS that central to the proposals were food security and prisoner of war exchanges.
A delegation of African leaders visited Kiev and St. Petersburg in the summer of the same year. Putin said that, like China's proposals, the African initiative might serve as a basis of a peace settlement.