The current chairman of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS is expected to visit Moscow and Kiev.
As the 8th edition of the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa opens this Monday, the Guinea Bissau head of state and current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is flying to Moscow.
Embalo will hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, whose country has been at war with its western neighbour, Ukraine, since last February. “I am going to Russia on Monday. I will be with President Vladimir Putin. I bring him a message of peace. I will tell him that it is necessary to speak with his brother (Volodymyr) Zelensky,” he said on Radio France Internationale (RFI).
President Embalo will be the second African president to discuss with Vladimir Putin since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On 3 June, the Senegalese head of state, who is also the current chairman of the African Union (AU), was received in Sochi by the Russian president. At the end of this meeting, Macky Sall obtained from the Kremlin the release of grain stocks blocked in Ukrainian ports.
President Embalo’s visit to Moscow on Monday is part of this dynamic. But it comes after the adoption of a new United Nations resolution against the annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia. The majority of African countries, namely 26, including 11 in West Africa, voted in favour of this resolution while 19 abstained.
After his stay in Russia, the Guinea-Bissau president is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. Visiting Senegal, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymytro Kuleba said his country was working on a visit by the AU chairperson to Ukraine.
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