Senegalese President Macky Sall will travel to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin, and then on to Ukraine.
Senegal is currently also the presidency of the African Union (AU) and Sall says he has been given a mandate by the union to accept the invitation sent by Moscow.
- As soon as everything is ready, I will go to Moscow and then also to Kyiv. All the AU leaders who want to visit (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky do it together then, Sall says at a press conference.
Zelensky has expressed the need to communicate with African leaders.
Macky Sall was supposed to have visited Putin last week, but "schedule problems" moved him into that trip. No exact date has been presented for the visit to Moscow, which will take place in the coming weeks.
In March, it was reported that Sall had spoken by telephone with Putin, and that he had then tried to call for a "long-term ceasefire".
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has not been met by the same resistance in Africa as by the West.
When the UN voted in March on a resolution condemning Russia's war on Ukraine, Senegal was one of the 26 African states that did not vote for it. The country abstained.