African leaders told Vladimir Putin to “show his desire to move forward [with peace]” before they convene in St Petersburg for a Russia-Africa summit at the end of this month, according to Senegal’s President Macky Sall.

The demand was delivered to the Russian president during a six-nation peace mission to Kyiv and Moscow in June, Sall said in an interview with the Financial Times. 

Sall was joined on the trip by his counterparts from South Africa, Zambia and representatives from Uganda, Egypt, Republic of Congo and the African Union.

“Before the next Russia-Africa summit, he [Putin] must do some actions to show his desire to move forward [with peace] even in a humanitarian way,” Sall told the FT in the presidential palace in Dakar, the Senegalese capital.

He said further exchanges of prisoners of war and the return to Ukraine of children taken by Russian occupiers “can be a very good signal”.

“That’s why we continue to use the Russia-Africa summit to see how we can move forward on the negotiations we tried to implement between Russia and Ukraine.”

Asked if Putin had shown any inclination to pursue peace, Sall said: “During this summit maybe we can have another meeting and have some progress. That’s what we hope.”

African leaders have been stepping up attempts to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow with no end in sight to Russia’s war against Ukraine. African countries have been hit hard by soaring inflation caused by elevated levels of food and energy prices caused by the war. They are among the biggest importers of grain and fertiliser from Ukraine and Russia.

Although there are no western sanctions against Russian food and fertiliser exports, customers have complained about banks’ reluctance to process transactions.

“We are facing the consequences of this war,” Sall said. “We have big problems with our food security and agriculture. We buy fertilisers from Russia and today with the sanctions, there are difficulties paying for these goods.

“That’s why we’re talking to both parties. We know it’s very complicated but we think it was positively received. Ukraine has said Russia must leave its occupied territory before they can negotiate and we understand that.”

(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com)