Kyiv, Ukraine: Kyiv urged leaders in Africa on Tuesday to keep their citizens from being embroiled in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a day after Zambia said one of its own was killed. Ukraine foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko urged African countries to press Russia not to use their citizens in its war in Ukraine. “We call on African Union and all African states to demand that Russia stop press-ganging their nationals,” Nikolenko wrote on social media. “We are clarifying this question,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency. Several Ukrainian soldiers on the front line in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine told AFP last month that alleged ex-convicts were being used as bait to draw fire and reveal Ukrainian positions.

Source: The Nation November 15, 2022 22:12 UTC