ARGUABLY, since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russia has been under tremendous pressure from the West, particularly with economic and financial sanctions. And the economic crisis to be faced by Russia has been profoundly aggravated because of the Russia-waged war in Ukraine. All the while, the war in Ukraine has led to food insecurity in a lot of countries in Africa, partly because of the governance problems that African countries face. Africa has a tremendous amount of arable land that they’ve not really put to good use. This growing bilateral political and economic exigency in terms of African-Russian relations has propelled both the African and Russian leadership to recently meet in St. Petersburg in Russia (July 27-28). Nonetheless, the West feels discomfort with this development.
Russia has been fervently exploring its strategic objectives in Africa in recent years, questing for securing a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean, gaining naval port access in the Red Sea, expanding natural resource extraction opportunities, displacing Western influence and promoting alternatives to democracy as a regional norm. Russia’s ambassador to the United States has told Newsweek that Moscow is preparing to boost strategic ties with African nations in line with an emerging new international order as President Vladimir Putin hosted a summit in Moscow in the last week of July.
Subsequent to the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019, in November, 2021, a report entitled ‘Africa: Development Prospects and Recommendations for Russian Policy was prepared under the supervision of Sergey Karaganov, the head of the Situational Analysis Programme, also a Dean of International Affairs and the Public Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and Russia’s Global Affairs journal. That policy report praised the joint declaration adopted at the first African leaders’ summit held in 2019 as it raised the African agenda of Russia’s foreign policy to a new level. The historic declaration, so far, remains the main document determining the conceptual framework of Russia-African bilateral cooperation.
Until recently, Russia’s engagement in African countries was significantly shaped by the different national contexts and by the interests of African governments. For instance, in a strong state like Ethiopia, Russia’s engagement takes place exclusively at the governmental level. By contrast, in Sudan and Mali (contexts with weaker state structures), other Russian actors like PMCs and private businesses are involved. Yet, in all three cases, Moscow’s presence tends to grow when relations between African governments and their international partners (especially in the West) deteriorate, often in the wake of authoritarian turns. This shows the opportunistic nature of Russia’s engagement.
Africa is the pivot of great powers’ competition: European and US policymakers until recently saw China as their main competitor in Africa – but now find themselves observing with deep unease Russia’s assertive return, epitomized by the presence of Wagner mercenaries in Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya and, briefly, northern Mozambique.Geopolitically examining, the African region remains the nucleus of global power completion vindicated by the fact that after the western powers penetration in the region, both Russia and China have also tried to get their influence in that region in terms of economic and diplomatic terms. The days are gone about one power influence in the African region. A study suggests that African nations have the resilience to grow their national interests without any political polarization or propensity of inclination towards any powerful country– the US, China and Russia.
According to the Russian government, the Russian –African leaders’ gathering has been ”the highest-profile and largest-scale event in Russian-African relations” and its goal is to ”bring about a fundamentally new level of partnership” by expanding cooperation across all areas of society, including politics, security, economic relations, technology and the cultural and humanitarian spheres. New bilateral projects and agreements in these areas may be announced at the summit. But compared with the 2019 summit, which took place under significantly lower geopolitical tension, this year’s gathering has been obsessive of the growing food crisis in the African region caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The Western concern: the West is critical about the role of the Wagner Group in Africa. The Wagner Group, a thousand-strong private military force, has in recent years become one of Russia’s most influential foreign policy tools. It has played a significant role on the battlefields of Syria and Ukraine and, recently, has worked to expand its footprint in Africa. The group has operated in several African countries since 2017, often providing its clients with direct military support and related security services alongside propaganda efforts. In January 2023, the US government designated Wagner as a significant transnational criminal organization.
Putin’s resolve: The Kremlin rejects the western allegations about the Wagner Group by alleging it as nothing but western propaganda against it. According to the Guardian, ‘’The Kremlin has pledged that it will not reduce Wagner’s activities in Africa even after the mercenary group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an abortive mutiny in Russia last month’’. ‘’Virtually embassies on the ground have not been sleeping either along with other western missions ….all African states have been subjected to unprecedented pressure from the US, and French their bit to prevent this summit from taking place,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Addressing the Russia-Africa summit for a second day, Putin said Moscow would closely analyze a peace proposal for Ukraine that African leaders have sought to pursue.’’ This is an acute issue, and we aren’t evading its consideration,” the Russian leader said, emphasizing that his government was treating the African initiative with respect and “looking at it attentively.” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said African leaders were looking forward to engaging further with Putin later Friday on their peace proposal. “It is our hope that constructive engagement and negotiation can bring about an end to the ongoing conflict,” Ramaphosa, who leads sub-Saharan Africa’s most developed country, said, adding in South Africa, “our own history has taught us that this is indeed possible.” Nevertheless, Putin’s resolve to pacify the Ukraine conflict through African peace diplomacy is a good omen.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law. He deals with the strategic and nuclear issues.
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