By Nellie Peyton
PRETORIA (Reuters) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said during a visit by Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday that peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow should start without preconditions such as Ukraine ceding land to Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump criticised the Ukrainian president this week for refusing to recognise Russia’s occupation of Crimea as part of a U.S. peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.
South Africa seeks to project itself as non-aligned on the Ukraine war but has good relations with Russia, with both countries belonging to the BRICS group of emerging economies that seeks to challenge the Western-dominated economic order.
Asked whether Ukraine may have to cede any territory to Russia as part of peace talks, Ramaphosa said that issue “should be talked about at the negotiating table”.
“I shared our own South African experience with (Zelenskiy) and said that the negotiations that brought an end to the nightmare of apartheid were held on a no-precondition basis,” Ramaphosa told a press conference with the Ukrainian president.
Zelenskiy arrived in South Africa overnight as Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with missiles and drones, killing at least eight people. He cut short his visit, his first to an African country, to return home following the attack.
He has been trying to shore up international support for Kyiv’s war effort amid growing pressure from Trump and said on Thursday that there was no point talking about Ukraine’s “red lines” in negotiations with Russia without a full ceasefire.
Ramaphosa held separate phone calls with Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine peace process this week.
Ramaphosa and Zelenskiy have met multiple times including in Kyiv in 2023 as part of a mediation attempt by African leaders which did not achieve any real breakthrough.
(Additional reporting by Tannur Anders and Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, Kate Mayberry, Philippa Fletcher)
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