The man who prepared the ground for this mission has talked about modest goals.
Jean-Yves Ollivier has not commented publicly about the trip recently – but in previously published interviews he has laid out his approach.
He said the aim was to start talking rather than to resolve the conflict, to begin a dialogue on issues that do not directly affect the military situation and build from there.
One of them is a potential swap of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war.
The other is to try and find solutions to issues that matter to Africa, like grain and fertilizer.
The war has severely restricted the export of grain from Ukraine and fertilizers from Russia, intensifying global food insecurity. Africa, which depends on imports of both, has suffered the most.