Kyiv pounded with missiles during visit of African leaders

Russian hypersonic and cruise missiles pounded Kyiv Friday as a high-ranking delegation of African leaders and top officials arrived in Ukraine to discuss peace options.

Air-raid sirens went off in Kyiv as the dignitaries, which included the presidents of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia and the Comoros Islands, visited Bucha, a Kyiv suburb where bodies of slaughtered civilians — some showing marks of torture — were found lying in the streets last year after Russian troops withdrew from the area.

While in Bucha, the African officials placed candles at a small memorial outside St. Andrew’s Church, near one of the locations where a mass grave was uncovered.

Shortly after, the sirens began to wail in Kyiv. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported an explosion in the Podilskiy district, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

“Russian missiles are a message to Africa: Russia wants more war, not peace,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

The Ukrainian air force reported that it shot down six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles, six Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles and two reconnaissance drones.

No deaths have been reported.

Two children and an elderly woman, however, were injured in the attack, and more than 30 houses were damaged in the Kyiv region as a result of the air strikes, local police chief Andriy Nebytov said.

On the eve of the African delegation’s visit, missiles rained down on several Ukrainian regions as Kyiv’s forces continued their newly-launched counteroffensive, which has already resulted in the recapture of at least even settlements.

Russian shelling killed two people and injured two others in Kherson, and in a separate incident a man was wounded in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The African leaders were scheduled to travel to Russia next and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Saturday — a move that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned.

“This is their decision, how logical it is, I don’t really understand,” he told reporters at a joint news conference with his guests.

Zelensky said after meeting the African dignitaries that peace talks with Russia would be possible only after Moscow fully withdraws its forces from occupied Ukrainian territory.

“To allow any negotiations with Russia now while the occupier is on our land is to freeze the war, to freeze everything: pain and suffering,” Zelensky said during the press conference.

“We need real peace, and therefore, a real withdrawal of Russian troops from our entire independent land,” he added.

Zelensky made clear Ukraine stood by its own 10-point “peace formula,” first introduced in November, which is based on a complete Russian withdrawal. But he invited the African leaders to take part in an international peace summit this summer.

The Kremlin has played down the chances of meaningful peace talks with Kyiv, saying that conditions for a peace process were not in place, but that it is ready to listen and is open to outside initiatives.

“President Putin was and is open to any contacts to discuss possible scenarios for solving the Ukrainian problem,” the Russian state news agency Interfax quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

With Post wires