Zelenskyy to cut short South Africa trip after Kyiv attacks – DW – 04/24/2025

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has said the overnight Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, which killed at least nine, shows that the Kremlin intends to keep going with its invasion despite US-led peace efforts.

Russian President Vladimir “Putin demonstrates through his actions, not words, that he does not respect any peace efforts and only wants to continue the war,” Sybiha wrote on social media. 

Sybiha also condemned what he called Moscow’s “maximalist demands for Ukraine to withdraw” from more Ukrainian territory as a condition of peace.
 

 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will be canceling part of his schedule for a trip to South Africa in order to return to Kyiv in the aftermath of deadly Russian strikes on the capital

“I am cancelling part of the program for this visit and will return to Ukraine immediately after the meeting with the President of South Africa,” Zelenskyy wrote on the messaging app Telegram just hours after arriving in the country.

Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha would take over all meetings in South Africa to inform leaders there about the situation in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader’s now abbreviated visit to South Africa comes shortly after the country joined a UN resolution reaffirming the world body’s “commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity” against “the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.”

The move by South Africa runs counter to its previously ambiguous role on Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, which it initially refused to condemn.

The spokesman for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Vincent Magwenya, said last month that Zelenskyy’s visit was a “continuation of our efforts to try to bring about a peaceful resolution.”

However, South Africa continues to cultivate its longstanding ties with Moscow, with Ramaphosa speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin as recently as Monday to “affirm the strong bilateral relations,” according to a statement from the South African government.

As the US continues to push a contentious peace proposal to end Russia’s more than three-year-long full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces have carried out further deadly aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. 

This comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will cut short a visit to South Africa that comes just weeks after the African country joined for the first time a UN General Assembly resolution criticizing Russia for its aggression against its neighbor.

DW brings you the latest updates on the conflict in Ukraine after more than three years of fighting.