African countries have also been affected by rising energy prices triggered by Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports. This in turn has fueled inflation on the continent and, in tandem with the deteriorating external economic situation, dealt a blow to financial stability. Some African countries have seen credit rating downgrades and significant increases in borrowing costs.
It’s also important to remember that Africa is one of the largest regional voting blocs at the United Nations. While some UN resolutions may seem insignificant, they will all play a role in any eventual peace process in Ukraine. African leaders—both individually and collectively—could also be mediators between Moscow and Kyiv.
It’s no coincidence that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently made his third visit to Africa since the start of the war. His talking points were alternative supply routes for Ukrainian agricultural goods following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal (which had allowed ships to export Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports for over a year) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s vision for peace.
For his part, in his keynote speech to the Russia-Africa summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin not only promised free grain shipments to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea, but portrayed Russia as an ally of African nations and as a country that represents the interests of the Global South.
Earlier this year, Russia published a new Foreign Policy Concept filled with theses about “Western hegemony” and portraying Russia and Africa as both struggling for the goal of a “more equitable polycentric world and elimination of social and economic inequality.” Similar priorities for the relationship were laid out in Putin’s article published ahead of the summit: a new world order (“more just and democratic”), a “non-discriminatory” agenda, and logistics chains and financial partnerships that are “free from unfavorable external impacts.”
It’s stating the obvious to point out that these are all issues far more applicable to Russia—isolated by sanctions and indirectly battling the West—than Africa itself. But they do fit with Russia’s rhetoric about promoting the interests of the developing world.
The Ukraine war and its consequences mean that for Moscow, this year’s summit was a relic of better times. In the early 2000s, and even after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin’s efforts in Africa were logical and looked like they could yield results. The only other such summit, which was held in 2019, was widely seen as the jumping-off point for Russia’s return to Africa, enabling it to take a position alongside other important regional powers and promote its interests amid its global confrontation with the West.
