Episode Notes:

Last week, a group of seven African leaders carried out a “peace mission” to Ukraine and met President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. The group then traveled to Russia, where they presented a peace plan to President Vladimir Putin, who largely dismissed the group’s suggestions. Ebenezer Obadere, the Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations joined the WarCast to tell us more about the trip and how these African leaders view the war in Ukraine.

[:18] Intro

[:48] What happened on the trip?

[2:18] What did the plan entail?

[4:05] Who went on the trip?

[6:34] How have these states approached the Russian invasion?

[10:54] What will happen now?

Episode Transcript

Erin O’Brien: My name is Erin O'Brien, and I'm the membership editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the WarCast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know now.

Last week, a group of seven African leaders carried out a peace mission to Ukraine and met President Zelensky in Kyiv. The group then traveled to Russia, where they presented the same peace plan to President Putin, who largely dismissed the group's suggestions. Here to tell us more about the trip and how these African leaders view the war in Ukraine is Ebenezer Obadere, the Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Welcome to The WarCast.

Ebenezer Obadere: Thank you for having me.

Erin O’Brien: So there's lots to unpack with this trip, obviously, but I was wondering if you could start out by just telling us a bit more about what happened, who traveled, what they discussed with both the Ukrainian and Russian leader.

Ebenezer Obadere: I think it came out almost out of nowhere. Seven African leaders and representatives led by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa. I think President Macky Sall of Senegal was also there. I think the President of Zambia was also there. Three or four other African diplomats and representatives. So it came out of the blue, and I was quite surprised. I was surprised.

I was surprised because only three weeks ago, a report had emerged of South Africa funneling arms to Russia, which is one of the major participants in the conflict, so I thought maybe that was the end of South Africa's claims to neutrality. So it came up as a surprise to me that the same country that apparently had taken sides in the conflict was championing a peace effort.

Every peace effort, let me say, has to be welcomed. I think most people in the world want that conflict to end as soon as possible. But at the end of the day, you also want a peace intervention to be as credible as possible. So this was one of the reasons why this came as a surprise: that on the face of it, this seemed to me totally implausible.

Erin O’Brien: And so what did the peace plan entail? What did they suggest to the Ukrainian and Russian leaders?

Ebenezer Obadere: Basically, they wanted the conflict to come to an end. I think there is an underlying economic impulse to it too, which I think is totally understandable. One blowback from the Ukraine-Russia conflict is the effect on food supplies, grain supplies, in Africa. So you remember last year, there were a couple of countries, I think maybe Sudan, maybe Egypt, where there were protests and riots on the street because people felt the impact from the fact that the imports that people would normally expect did not arrive in those countries. And because of that, there's always been this understanding that if this conflict were to continue, Africa and some other continents are going to suffer the blowback from it.

So I think that maybe that's one of the reasons why these leaders took it upon themselves to reach out, and I think maybe another thing is, and this is looking specifically at South Africa now, I think maybe there's a sense in which President Ramaphosa felt maybe that he was caught with his hand in the air a little bit. Those reports about South Africa giving support to Russia... He must have been taken aback for a minute. So maybe a combination of those things led Ramaphosa and these South African leaders to reach out, to decide on this peace mission to go to Kyiv and St. Petersburg at the same time.

Erin O’Brien: You discussed in a blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations the participants in this peace mission, and notably that Nigeria was not included. And could you speak a little bit more about that? Why do you think the peace mission was comprised of the actors it was?

Ebenezer Obadere: I think one of the claims I was putting forward in that piece is that, almost behind our backs, South Africa has used the occasion of this conflict to press its claims to continental leadership in Africa. It's almost as if nobody was expecting it. It has happened. Now, I'm not holding South Africa responsible for trying to posture as the leader in terms of African diplomacy. On the contrary, I'm holding Nigerian leaders responsible for their reticence, and this was, again, one of the reasons why I thought there was a problem with that initiative. It did not seem to have the backing of the African Union. If it did, I have not seen any reports that would support that. ECOWAS did not release any statement endorsing it. ECOWAS is the Economic Community of West African States.

So it seems to have just come almost out of nowhere, and from where I understand... Now, I'm Nigerian, of course, so I have to put that on the table. But at the end of the day, if you're talking about an African-led peace initiative, the fact that it does not include Africa's most populous country, at the moment, if you're putting together a Pan-African initiative, there seems to be something missing there from the outset that any observer would find very, very curious, and that was where I was coming from in that piece.

So basically, primarily I was talking about that omission, but at the same time, I was also trying to nudge the new administration in Nigeria to embrace its role, and to, as I mentioned in the peace, lead Africa from the front. My sense is that South Africa cannot do it for all kinds of reasons, one of which is that it no longer can be accepted as neutral. But the other reason is that I think Nigeria is better positioned strategically, in terms of its demography, in terms of economic potential, to do what South Africa is doing right now.

Erin O’Brien: And that leads well into my next question, which is: since the beginning of the conflict, how have these states positioned themselves? As you mentioned, there is reports of South African weapons traveling or being funneled into Russia. There was also joint naval exercises carried out by South Africa and Russia. So these states that are participating in the peace mission, how have they positioned themselves since Russia invaded Ukraine?

Ebenezer Obadere: It's a great question. This goes to one of the central themes I tried to address in the blog that you referenced. I think from the beginning, several African countries, South Africa being one of them, Senegal being one of them, several African countries came out and said, "We're going to be neutral, meaning we're not going to take any sides," and they basically presented the reasons and the grievances for their neutrality.

But I think one of the things that has emerged over the last year and a half over the course of the conflict is that, one, these countries that appear to be neutral are some of the countries that are also closest to the Russian region. The two prime examples: Senegal and South Africa. So that's number one.

The second point is, and I think it's a corollary of this, which is that I don't think that neutrality was thought through. I thought it was reflexive and knee-jerk, and some of the things that have happened since then buttressed my own argument that neutrality was the wrong thing for these countries to have done in the [...] especially to the extent that it wasn't really neutrality. It was an embrace of Vladimir Putin, and an embrace of Russia masquerading as neutrality. So that's the first part.

And I think the other reason why I thought the neutrality couldn't stand up to scrutiny is the fact that it was also predicated on this very bizarre assumption that in a conflict of disproportion involving two of the world's major powers and involving, as I see it, very normative issues that are very important to African countries, for any African country to say, "Oh, we're just going to be neutral. We're not going to take any side," I thought that was the wrong thing to do from the beginning. And the moment we started feeling the impact in terms of rising food prices, the [inaudible 00:09:23] of grain supply from Ukraine, I was confirmed in my own suspicion all along that taking a neutral position was the wrong thing to do.

I'm not saying that African countries were wrong to articulate their grievances with the United States and the West. They should have. But having said that, they should have done what the Kenyan Ambassador to the United Nations, Martin Kimani, did at that time, which was to say, "There's something really wrong here. We're being asked to take the side of the West. However, the West has not always treated us well and it has not always held its side of the bargain in terms of fundamental normative principles. However, we also recognize that Russia has invaded the territory of another country, and as people who once bore the brunt of foreign intervention, we take a position firmly against that and we support the Western alliance in this struggle."

Supporting the Western alliance does not mean vacating your right to be autonomous, to be independent, to be critical of the West. But it will have meant that all along, African countries will have been very clear about where they stood in terms of respect for rules in a rules-based international order. I think not doing that from the get-go is a missed opportunity.

Erin O’Brien: What do you think the aftermath of this trip and this presented plan will be, if anything?

Ebenezer Obadere: So clearly, this trip failed, right? I thought it was a very grotesque spectacle. I didn't think they achieved anything. And I think one of the very interesting things... I think Zelensky said, "Look, we're being bombed, right? You can see the evidence that things are not going well. You can't be asking for peace when it's clear who the aggressor has been all along with this conflict."

Having said that, I also don't want to then say it's wrong not to look for peace. That's not what I'm saying. I think any kind of intervention that promotes peace, that leads to any kind of resolution where Russia and Ukraine set down their arms and they're brought to the table, that is to be welcome. But I think we also have to be very, very realistic. I think one of the things that has emerged out of this is, for me, the fundamental connection between the reality that you have within particular states and how that affects their credibility in the international system.

I think it's quite interesting that Senegal, Egypt, Zambia, South Africa, were interested in fostering peace between Ukraine and Russia. Again, that's okay, but you must have a strong hand to play. You must bring something to the table. So I think in terms of busy diplomatic equity, I think what came out as a result of this particular intervention: that these states did not have that equity, so they couldn't really push either of the two countries in whatever direction.

For me, it's a reminder of their basic weakness in the international system: something, incidentally, that they've been making several references too since the beginning of the conflict itself. Having said that, I don't think it necessarily means that African countries can have no role to play in the search for peace between Ukraine and Russia, but they can't do it alone. They will also have to team up with other countries, other states, and build coalitions with other countries in order to make that possible.

Erin O’Brien: Well, thank you so much for joining us on The WarCast.

Ebenezer Obadere: Thank you for having me.