Like any other part of the world, the African continent has been impressed by the war, especially halting of grains export from the Black Sea, and hundreds of millions of people in Africa are facing with the shortage of foodstuffs and also its price rise. Sergey Lavrov intends to convince the African leaders not to consider Moscow accountable for (the present) conflict and food crisis. Russia says the Ukrainian mines in the Black Sea is the main factor of blocking the export of grains at the sea and non- supply global chain of foodstuff.
Objectives of Lavrov African Tour
The main motivation and impetus of Moscow to focus its attention on Africa is the anti – Russian UN Resolution in which 17 African countries cast their abstention vote. There was only one No vote from the African group of countries to the UN Resolution.
African countries are of importance for Russians and this originates from their especial relations with Moscow. Wagner Group is one of the most important leverages of Russia in Africa. Wagner is a private company close to Kremlin that dispatches mercenaries and or human resources to about half of African countries. Wagner has registered two major defeats in its records that are:
– Stationing in Mozambique to fight against extremist religious groups
– In Libyan Crisis and in support of Khalifa Haftar in 2019
Yet, Wagner Group is coupled with a strategic success to Moscow in Mali crisis. The importance of Moscow’s strategic success in Mali was because of the domination of army officers and dispatching Wagner fighters to the country, the new regime in Bamako expelled a military French group from Mali whose task was to fight against rebels, and thus, a Western front in Africa was handed over to Moscow. Nevertheless, numerous explosions in Mali capital and also human rights allegations attributed to the group has built an unsuccessful image of the group.
Sudan is another country where Russia is active through Wagner Group there. Last year, military coup in Sudan hampered the power transition process with problems. The chaos caused Wagner Group along with several Russian companies to play a major and important role in Sudan. Some reports also confirm that Wagner Group along with Russian firms have held the Sudanese gold mines under their control.
Military regime in Khartoum has close relations with Moscow too. Western authorities have scrutinized flights within the recent months that are assumed to transfer precious metals from Sudan to Russia. Sudan has also concluded a major contract based on which one of the port in Africa’s eastern shores will be put at the disposal of Russia for a period of 25 years.
Another key location is Central African Republic where more than a thousand of Wagner mercenaries, representing a weak central government, have launched a series of bloody attacks against rebels in return for concessions relevant to mines. According to witnesses, within the recent months, Russian military contractors have staged violent attacks on gold mines in the East of the country, apparently aimed at plundering amounts of gold.
Africans’ approach on war in Ukraine has disappointed Western authorities especially the Americans and the British. Even Uganda, as the last leg of African tour chosen by Lovrov to activate his African diplomacy, has now a challenging and critical relations with the West despite it already had close relations with Britain and the U.S. The reason to this challenge relates to pressures exerted by the West to Uganda government under the context of suppression of political opponents and to recognize the homosexual rights.
Yoweri Museveni who has taken power in Uganda since 1986, and receives considerable amount of money from the West under the assistance name, has accused the Westerners to interfere in the internal affairs of his country.
Lavrov visits Ethiopia after Kampala. What has made Ethiopia attractive for Kremlin is within the recent years and after the war in Northern Tigray Province, relation between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the West has also been damaged. In Addis Ababa talks will be focused on money and technology rather than military and security assistance.
The Summit meeting of Russia and Africa which was held in 2019 in Sochi probably is going to be held again during the current year in Ethiopian capital. Relations between Russia with all countries of African continent has been fortified through investment in mines, financial loans, selling of agricultural equipment or nuclear technology. Rosatom state atomic energy corporation known for its military and civil use of nuclear energy, have been looking for expansion of its presence in Africa. Russia has been the largest arms exporter to sub-Saharan countries during 2016-2020, and has supplied almost one third of the total arms imports to Sub-Saharan countries.
Historical Memory of Africa, the Russian Winning Card versus the West
One of the reasons of Moscow’s assistance is that in many of these countries, there are parties that still remain in office while during their anti-colonialist struggles against colonialism or against supremacy of the white Westerners were supported by the Soviet Union. The historical memory is considered to be a winning card for Kremlin.
Russia looks at African continent as a confrontation front with the West, and having regarded that Africa enjoys having mines, raw and rich resources, relations of Russia and African countries can neutralize the Western sanctions on Moscow to a large extent. Therefore, Moscow’s African diplomacy, with its potentials for Russia, can be considered as to be one of the pillars of Russian confrontation versus the West.