The two-day summit of African leaders including African Union that Russia hosted in St. Petersburg revealed the anxiety of African leaders for the grain deal that ended, and pleaded with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the grain deal should be revived, and that peace in Ukraine and end to the war is important for Africa and the rest of the world. African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said at the summit, “The disruption of energy and grain supplies must end immediately. The grain deal must be extended for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, Africans in particular.” South African President Cyril Ramphosa said, “We feel we have a right to call for peace – the ongoing conflict also negatively affects us.”

Russian President Putin stood firm in his view that Russia was always ready to negotiate, but it was Ukraine that was refusing to do so. Russia’s Tass news agency reported Putin as saying, “But after the withdrawal of our forces from the outskirts of Kiev – and we were asked to do so in order to create conditions for signing of the final agreement – Kiev authorities disavowed all previous agreements.”

It is a surprising statement which reveals something that Russia has not said before because it seemed that Russian forces marched towards Kiev when the Russians started the war on February 24, 2022, and it seemed that Russian tanks were about to enter the Ukrainian capital. But it was learned that the long column of Russian tanks and armoured cars was caught in snow and slush of Russian winter, and it could not move forward nor return. It was then that Russia shifted its focus to the eastern parts of Ukraine which seemed easier to capture because of the pro-Russian forces there. Putin also made it clear that the peace plan of the African leaders, which was first presented to him in June, was not very different from what the Chinese had proposed in February this year.

More importantly, Putin revealed another key aspect of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. He said, “I will not tell the details of what we negotiated right now, that would not be appropriate. However, not all know that, and we know it very well that Kiev obtained its independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, based on the declaration of independence, and this declaration states clearly that Ukraine is a neutral state. This is of principal importance to us; it is not quite clear for us, why the West started pulling Ukraine into NATO.”

The problem as stated by Putin makes the Russia-Ukraine problem quite unresolvable. It is not clear whether Russia would move back from Crimea if it promises to be neutral. The Russian president is silent on what seems to bother the Ukrainians most. There is also the problem whether as a sovereign state Ukraine would agree to abdicate its free will to join or not to join NATO. For nearly a century, Finland had remained a neutral country, but it had changed its stance after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and had joined NATO.

It will be difficult for the African leaders to say that they will help negotiate peace between the two sides, and it must be the reason that Chinese President Xi Jinping who had set out to mediate between Russia and Ukraine had suddenly withdrawn from any mediatory effort. But the Russia-Africa summit shows that Russia exerts influence however diminished it may be, and that the African countries look to Russia because they find the interference by the United States and France to be quite troublesome. As a matter of fact, African countries are left with the very difficult choice of choosing between Russia and the West.