West's prolonging of bloodshed unconscionable: China Daily editorial

After China openly announced it would try and mediate between Russia and Ukraine and dispatched an envoy to solicit opinions on how to get the two sides back to the negotiation table in May, more members of the international society have stepped up the promotion of peace talks.

In April, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva supported China's call for peace and proposed forming a group to mediate in the Ukraine crisis. On June 3, Indonesian Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto also proposed a peace plan at the annual session of the Shangri-La Dialogue.

The latest initiative is from Africa. A delegation of leaders from seven African nations and the representatives of three others met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in Saint Petersburg, one day after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.

Although neither Russia nor Ukraine fully agreed with their proposed "road to peace" that seeks agreement on a series of "confidence-building measures", their mediation effort is still noteworthy as it is "the first time that Africa is united behind the resolution of a conflict outside of our continent", as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's office said ahead of the trip. The fact that the African delegation made the trip and held in-depth talks with leaders of the two nations is further evidence that an increasing number of members of the international community recognize that peace best serves everyone's interests.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, however, seems to have other ideas. Led by the Cold War warriors in Washington and the hawkishly antipathetic-to-Russia head of the organization Jens Stoltenberg, the transatlantic alliance continues to fuel the flames by supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine, as their objective is to permanently weaken Russia.

On Thursday, the day before the African delegation arrived in Ukraine, NATO held a defense ministers' meeting with the participation of senior executives from 25 major Western defense companies. The fault line in the international community demarcates those countries that cherish peace and those that seek geopolitical advantages at the cost of lives.

China and the other responsible members of the international society have already demonstrated they are on the former side of that divide. Now it is time for certain Western politicians to prove they don't belong to the latter.