President Vladimir Putin meets with  African leaders who traveled to Russia on a self-styled “peace mission”.

On Friday, the seven delegated  African leaders traveled to Ukraine on a peace mission, before arriving in St. Petersburg the next day to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin who was attending Russia’s showpiece international economic forum.

The members of the delegation – consisting of presidents of Comoros, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, Egypt’s prime minister, and delegates from the Republic of Congo and Uganda.

The mission, the first of its kind by African leaders, came in response to ongoing peace initiatives, such as the one by China, and was particularly important for African countries that rely on food and fertilizer imports from Russia and Ukraine, whose war has caused disruptions to their exports.

The details of the delegation’s proposal were vague.

The meeting lasted for three hours. According to the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, “the African peace plan contained 10 elements but were not formulated on paper”. It was said that the Russian President has shown interest in considering the proposal.