The President of Senegal and current chairman of the African Union, Macky Sall, who had an extended and very fruitful meeting with Putin on June 3 in Sochi, has been making the rounds in Europe and continuing to take a non-aligned position, urging a negotiated solution to the Ukraine conflict. First, in Brussels, he asked the Europeans to ease up on the sanctions, as they are having a dire impact on food supplies in Africa. “We want to pay, but it is becoming impossible. So we ask the Europeans for the same mechanism as for gas and oil,” Sall said in a June 18 interview with French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche. The general response to him from Western media and officials has been that the sanctions do not pertain to food and fertilizer exports—so just deal with it. (https://www.lejdd.fr/International/sa-rencontre-avec-poutine-son-avis-sur-macron-le-president-senegalais-macky-sall-se-confie-a-catherine-nay-4118336)
Then on June 20, Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a virtual meeting with the African Union—the first since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict. Unfortunately for Zelenskyy, even though he invited every head of state from the continent, only four showed up: Macky Sall of Senegal, the President of Côte d’Ivoire, the President of the Libyan Council, and the President of the Republic of the Congo. The rest only sent ministers or other government officials in what is seen as a snub to the Ukrainian President.
