Author: Fabrizio Vielmini – 17/07/2023
On the 27–28 July 2023, St. Petersburg will be the scene of another big international forum part of Russia’s manyfold public diplomacy activities that Vision and Global Trends is following (see previous here: https://www.vision-gt.eu/news/sief-2023-the-26th-saint-petersburg-international-economic-forum/ ). This time, Russian northern capital will host the heads of States of the “Black continent”, gathering to attend the second Russia-Africa Summit.
Moscow’s expectations are that most of 54 African presidents will be present in St Petersburg, “ignoring threats and blackmail from the West”, as the main Russian diplomatic architect of the event, Ambassador at Large Oleg Ozerov, put it publicly last March. Indeed, after the start of Russian military operations against Ukraine, the USA and their European subordinates intensified the tussle for influence among African countries to divert them from Russia. Last year, the White House issued a strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa[1]. In December 2022, Washington held its first Africa-related diplomatic event since the Obama administration, which was attended by 49 out of 54 African heads of states[2]. Since then, geopolitical shocks crossing the continent, as turmoil in Sudan, have been interpreted as a reflection of an ongoing new scramble for Africa. The UN General Assembly voting on the Ukrainian conflict testified of a certain split among African countries in relation to Russia, with 19 nations at least refusing to join the Western stand in favour of continuing cooperation with Russia[3].
At stake there is nothing less than the new architecture of International Relations and the shift from the Western unipolar hegemonic system towards a more balanced world order, built on a wider participation of actors in global decision-making. Obviously, Russia is not alone in this struggle since China is a parallel supporting force in the structuring of a “Global South” front. The latter concept implies steering Africa’s policy orientation away from the US and the European former colonial masters towards a new model of fairer international relations, based on equal co-operation in a multipolar world without the socio-economic inequalities of Western neoliberalism.
Overall, all the forces resisting Anglo-American imperialism are intensifying their African focus. Last week (11-14 July 2023), Iranian head Ebrahim Raisi performed the first African tour (Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe) of the President of the Islamic Republic in eleven years[4]. Being under heavy economic sanctions from the side of the Atlantic countries, Teheran is seeking to diversify ties to overcome diplomatic isolation and mitigate the economic effects of the measures. By this way, also Israel, the strategic opponents of the Islamic Republic, is sucked into the fray. All in all, the African factor is more and more significant in the world layouts, the continent standing as the field of a global clash between Western suprematism and other civilizations’ resistance[5].
Going back to the upcoming summit, Moscow performed carefully its preparation to extract the maximum results from it. In view of the event, Moscow declared 2023 the “year of Africa in the Russian Federation”. Russia tries to build its current African efforts on the Soviet Union’s lasting legacy. During the cold war, the Soviets effectively supported the struggle of the African nations against Western colonialism, apartheid and racism often bringing resolute contribution to many countries’ national independence – a legacy still visible even on the flags of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, where assault rifles Kalashnikov are portrayed! In October 2019, the first Russia-Africa Summit was the first major gathering of African and Russian leaders since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was then co-chaired by President Putin and his Egyptian colleague Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, at that time the chairman of the African Union (AU) under the theme — “peace, security and development”.
After that, the COVID-19 pandemic imposed a long-delay to the renewed dialogue. Now Moscow’s ambition is that the Summit will produce a comprehensive strengthening of Russian-African cooperation, delivering a significant array of projects apt to shape African future economic development, so that Russian potential may join Chinese development programs in a coherent system across the continent.
What Russia has to offer to Africa? First of all, Moscow has a consistent pull attraction force as a player in global food security. This force is underlined by the significance of the agreement on grain exports from the Black Sea and Ukraine that is currently negotiated on the background of the conflict, the outcome of which can change the lives of millions of African people. In addition, Russian enterprises command lot of technological expertise that Africa can benefit from. This know-how is particularly relevant to Africans in areas of nuclear energy, oil and gas, transport technology, machine building and construction. In the field of energy, Rosatom became a major nuclear power player (notably in Egypt, etc.), the same as Gazprom in Algeria with gas, paving the way for major energy infrastructure projects[6].
All these areas of cooperation are reinforced by the soft-power that Russian maintains in the field of education[7]. Traditionally, Russia has been a provider of knowledge and training to Africans in technical and industrial areas. The Russian government has renewed the Soviet tradition of offering thousands of scholarships every year to young Africans to study at Russian universities, first of all in the University named after Congolese politician Patrice Lumumba[8], leader of the Congolese National Movement brutally killed by insurgents on the payroll of Belgium and the United States[9].
Ethiopia is a particular focus of the Russian effort toward Africa. In 2023, the two countries are celebrating 125 years since the establishment of official diplomatic relations, an history that Moscow cherishes as a showcase of Russian diplomatic interaction with the continent, predating the Soviet era and still free of the European colonial and exploitative stamp[10]. Nowadays, the Horn of Africa’s country has a huge interest in attracting Russian grains and in agricultural cooperation overall. Recently Uralchem Group, one of the main suppliers of Russian fertilizers to the African continent, announced in Addis-Abeba its intention intends to provide about 300 thousand tons of fertilizers to developing countries (predominantly in Africa) absolutely free of charge[11]. Moreover, Ethiopia is a privileged partner of Russia being a largely Orthodox country. This fact creates a privileged ground for spiritual rapprochement, against the global onslaught of Western liberal (im)morality, a ground on which build initiatives beyond neo-colonialism for the management of migrations and the peaceful coexistence of cultures.
Along with Ethiopia, Algeria is of the highest interest to Moscow, as the main buyer of Russian weapons and because of its importance as energy producer. The summit will probably deserve a special attention to the Algerian President in order to “step on the foot” of France and stress the unfortunate distance Paris has taken from the great geopolitical heritage of General De Gaulle.
Thirdly, Mozabique presents a particular interest to Moscow and as such is singled out by US imperialist groups as a flashpoint of possible confrontation between the two powers[12].
Another direction Moscow would like to develop in its African policy is the building of multilateral ties between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and African regional organisations. Russia will try to facilitate the building of ties between African countries and its associates in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and especially Kazakhstan. The aim is to have EAEU partners more active on the African vector through the shaping of specific free trade zones. This will be one of the topics discussed at the Summit.
According to Ambassador Ozerov, the current Russian-African cooperation stands to a qualitatively new level. Indeed, one can fully agree with this statement considering that in June African leaders managed to organize a peace mission to mediate in the Russian-Ukrainian/NATO conflict. To be noted that during the delegation’s visit to Moscow, Senegalese President Macky Sal urged President Putin to “demonstrate his desire to move forward on the path to peace”, taking at least some humanitarian action before the summit.
Last but not least, the African Summit has assumed additional importance for Moscow in the aftermath of the recent Wagner mutiny. The private military company (PMC) has been so far one of the main geopolitical tools to project Russian influence across the continent[13]. Wagner’s role in Africa underlines the importance of military ties in the overall balance of Russian-African relations. Over the last decade, the Russian miliary has provided important training support to strengthen national armies across the continent. The relevance of military cooperation can be spotted in Russian cities, where today it is not rare to see African soldiers around, as this author witnessed even in Siberia last May. Against such a background, where more than one African government has outsourced to the Russian PMC relevant security functions, the fact that this player could perform such an astonishing act of insubordination is for sure a motive of high concern. To overcome this situation, the chief of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov performed extraordinary talks, taking the way of several African capitals in advance to the forum, in order to reassure their governments of the solidity of Russia’s commitments. Nevertheless, the June incident has stained Moscow soft and hard power in the security sphere and this stance should now be refurbished somehow[14]. The St. Petersburg Summit will be interested also to assess this.
All in all, in the current conjuncture, the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit will be a remarkable event which will provide insight into Russia’s long-term relations with African countries and how Moscow plans to further develop its strategy towards the continent. Apart from the level of effective participation, the effectiveness and resilience of Russia-Africa they’d better notice quickly n ties will be measured by the content the political declaration and the joint action plan that the heads of State will adopt. The event will be propaedeutic towards the 2023 BRICS summit, upcoming in South Africa, despite the Hague “International Court”s arrest warrant accusation against that President Putin may complicate his attendance, even if, throughout the “Global South”, similar instances are perceived more and more as an expression of the Western unilateralism[15].
In any case, we are witnessing a new global order taking shape, European governments would better notice quickly, instead of persisting in following the Anglo-Saxon suprematism, increasingly a certain receipt for the marginalisation and the decadence of our continent, also by way of its marginalisation and expulsion from cooperation with African countries.
[1] U.S. Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, The White House, August 2022, https://whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/U.S.-Strategy-Toward-Sub-Saharan-Africa-FINAL.pdf
[2] B. Aris, Most African nations will attend Russia’s second Africa-Russia summit in St Petersburg, 14.03.2023, https://intellinews.com/most-african-nations-will-attend-russia-s-second-africa-russia-summit-in-st-petersburg-272876/
[3] “Of these, eleven countries either abstained or did not vote in all cases: Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cameroon, Mozambique, Namibia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and South Africa. Three countries voted against the resolutions once: Algeria, Burundi, Congo. Four countries voted against twice (regarding the resolutions on the Human Rights Council and the one on Reparations): Zimbabwe, Mali, Central African Republic, Ethiopia. One country, Eritrea, voted against the resolutions four times.” See: O. Barabanov, Relations Between Russia and Africa at the Present Stage, Valdai Club, 24.04.2023, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/relations-between-russia-and-africa-at-the-present/
[4] M. Motamedi, ‘Continent of Opportunities’: Iran’s Raisi to go on Africa Tour, Aljazeera, 11.07.2023, https://aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/11/continent-of-opportunities-irans-raisi-kicks-off-africa-tour
[5] A. Celunov, Tegeran pognalsja za Afrikoj, “Kommersant”, 13.07.2023, https://kommersant.ru/doc/6098526?from=horizont_lenta
[6] A. Kalika, Le « grand retour » de la Russie en Afrique?, Russie.Nei.Visions 114, IFRI, Avril 2019.
[7] L. Sale, 2nd Russia-Africa Summit: Prospects And Expectations, “The Daily Trust”, 13.07.2023, https://dailytrust.com/2nd-russia-africa-summit-prospects-and-expectations/
[8] The Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (Rossiskij Universitet Druzhby Narodov, RUDN) was established in 1960 by the then Soviet leaders to help nations to assist countries that had recently achieved independence from colonial powers. See: https://eng.rudn.ru/
[9] In 2002, Belgium formally apologised for its role in the execution D. Boffey, Reappearance of statue’s missing hand reignites colonial row, “The Guardian”, 22.02.2019.
[10] T. Jolivet, From the Russian Empire and Abyssinia to the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, 13.07.2023, https://russiancouncil.ru/en/blogs/publicdiplomacycenter-en/from-the-russian-empire-and-abyssinia-to-the-russian-federation-and-th/
[11] https://fanabc.com/english/ethiopia-hosts-a-roundtable-dedicated-to-second-russia-africa-summit/
[12] M. Kepe et al., Great-Power Competition and Conflict in Africa, RAND Corporation, 2023, https://rand.org/t/RRA969-2
[13] K. Stoner, Russia Resurrected : its Power and Purpose in A New Global Order, Oxford University Press, New York 2021.
[14] H. Ashby, J. Sany, Russia’s Wagner Uprising Will Force a Kremlin Reshuffle in Africa, 13.07.2023, https://usip.org/publications/2023/07/russias-wagner-uprising-will-force-kremlin-reshuffle-africa
[15] Le (im)possibilità della Corte Penale Internazionale nella crisi ucraina, ISPI, 03.03.2023, https://ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/le-impossibilita-della-corte-penale-internazionale-nella-crisi-ucraina-33901