African views began to shift in favor of Ukraine when Russia blocked grain exports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video conference call to Irish students on Friday.

"This appeared after Russia absolutely shamefully blocked the Black Sea, blocked the supply of grain from Ukraine to the countries of the African continent, especially to countries where there will be famine due to this blocking," he said.

Zelensky noted that "there were no relations between Ukraine and the countries of the African continent for many years," and "Russia's influence in Africa is greater than the influence of Ukraine."

"At the same time, today, country after country, they are beginning to figure out what happened. That they were misinformed, that Russia is really the aggressor, that it does not support life, but does the opposite. We see this by voting on resolutions – we had a record support for Ukraine in condemning Russia's actions – more than 140 countries, and African countries appeared among them," the president said.

However, according to him, "there are still countries to which ships with grain have been sent, we really help them. And even now, the ships went with wheat, and some African states do not see this at the political level, the level of leaders."