African peace mission in Ukraine war to start mid-June

African leaders seeking to broker peace in the Ukraine war are set to launch their mission "in mid-June," South Africa said Tuesday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had each agreed to receive a six-member African peace team.

The African leaders, meeting on Monday, "agreed that they would engage" Putin and Zelensky "on the elements for a ceasefire and a lasting peace in the region," a statement from Ramaphosa's office said.

"The presidents confirmed their availability to travel to Ukraine and Russia in mid-June," it said, without giving a specific date or itinerary.

Ramaphosa later told a press conference in Pretoria alongside the visiting Portugese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa that Monday's meeting "confirmed that we now are at a stage were we are going visit Kyiv and Moscow."

"Our mission is a peace mission," he said, "and we want to dub it as a road to peace."

He said the African leaders would be "seeking to get a commitment on both sides that they too should seek... to end this conflict through peaceful means."

The two leaders "need to outline to us their perspective of the war as well as what are their minimum requirements for bringing the conflict to an end," he said.

"We will be able to give our own perspective as Africans in terms of how we see this war having an impact on Africa in relation to food prices, grain prices and fuel, as well as the impact it is having on Europe and the rest of the world as it has become rather global type of conflict," Ramaphosa said.

De Sousa thanked Ramaphosa for his role in the initiative, emphasizing the importance of listening "to the two parties and tell them what is the African view of a war that is not just a European war, it is a global war."

Foreign ministers from the respective countries will "finalize the elements of a roadmap to peace," Ramaphosa's office said in the earlier statement.

The delegation announced by Ramaphosa last month comprises the presidents of the Republic of Congo, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.

Monday's virtual meeting was also attended by Comoros President Azali Assoumani, the current head of the African Union (AU).

African countries have been badly hit by rising prices for grain since Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- a major global source of wheat and other agriculture commodities -- and the war's wider impact on world trade.