IPNEWS: Liberia is among thirty-eight African countries that have boycotted this year’s Russia-Africa summit currently taking place in the Russian capital St. Petersburg.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg in a piece of diplomatic theater designed to portray Russia as a great power with many global friends, despite its destabilizing war in Ukraine, but only 16 African heads of state are attending the summit — fewer than half of the 43 who came to the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019.
According to presidential aide Yury Ushakov, a striking disappointment for the Kremlin despite a flurry of diplomatic efforts in Africa and a sign of dismay in African nations about a war that has raised food and fuel prices, hurting vulnerable populations. An additional 10 African states are sending prime ministers, Ushakov said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed the West for the reduced number, claiming there had been “absolutely unconcealed brazen interference of the United States, France, and other states” to dissuade them from attending. “This is a fact, this is outrageous,” he said
The timing of the meeting is awkward. Just last week, Russia renewed its Black Sea blockade on exports of Ukrainian grain amid a food security emergency and drought in the Horn of Africa. Putin has been unapologetic as Moscow aims to displace Ukrainian grain in global markets, boosting its leverage in Africa and ruining Ukraine’s agriculture-dependent economy.
Relations between Russia and Africa are uneven at best. Some African leaders see the Kremlin as a useful foil against the West but also a source of destabilization and disinformation efforts in Africa, modest trade and minuscule investment.
African leaders are well accustomed to foreign leaders promising big and failing to deliver. But statistics tell an especially stark story of broken Russian promises. At the African summit in 2019, Putin promised to more than double trade with Africa to nearly $40 billion, from about $16.8 billion, within five years. By 2021, it had reached only $17.7 billion, according to the state-run Tass news agency, citing Russian customs data, mainly Russian exports of arms and grain. It is a puny sum compared with $295 billion for the European Union, $254 billion for China and $83.7 billion for the United States.
Those figures underscore African nations’ economic interests, but Russia’s humanitarian contribution to Africa is even more dismal, despite the food security emergency. Russia has donated less than $6.5 million to the U.N. World Food Program this year, according to the agency’s figures — less than Honduras ($42 million), South Sudan ($15 million) or Guinea Bissau ($6.9 million), three of the world’s poorest, most fragile nations.
Still, the summit in St. Petersburg, which had to be postponed last year, shows that some African nations are still willing to deal with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine and its blockade.
Putin’s message that he is working to topple the global dominance of the United States and advance a fairer, multipolar world order resonates with many African leaders who are annoyed with Western arrogance and scolding in general and specifically unhappy about pressure to take sides in the war, according to analysts.
For many African leaders, trade is not Russia’s biggest attraction. Policymakers in Africa look to the United States for aid and China for trade, loans and infrastructure.
Russia is where they call for hired muscle who don’t ask questions or preach about democratic values — a valuable service for repressive governments in unstable nations such as Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic or Mali, where state-funded Russian mercenary group Wagner, founded by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, is most active. Russia is also Africa’s biggest arms supplier.
In related news, Ukraine’s top diplomat visited Liberia on Wednesday as the country celebrates its 176 Independence Day, on a third wartime tour of Africa ahead of Russia planned summit with leaders from the continent this week after the demise of the Black Sea grain deal.
The Liberia trip by Dmytro Kuleba, the first such visit in the history of Ukrainian diplomacy, according to the foreign ministry, comes amid a concerted push by Kyiv to challenge Russian influence in Africa and the wider “Global South”.
Foreign Minister Kuleba will hold talks with Liberian leaders to discuss “ensuring the export of Ukrainian grain to Africa” as well as the vision for peace in Ukraine set out by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the ministry said.
“Against the backdrop of Russia’s food blackmail, Ukraine is maximizing its consolidation of support from African countries to continue exporting Ukrainian grain to the Black Sea,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said this week.
Russia, like Ukraine a major grain exporter, last week pulled out of the year-old grain deal that had allowed Ukraine to safely export grain via the Black Sea during the war, driving up food prices.
Russian air strikes have since hit grain infrastructure in the export region of Odesa, including along the Danube River, a vital alternative export corridor.
Kyiv says Moscow seeks to destroy its grain sector in order to set itself up as a unique grain supplier. It says Moscow is exerting pressure to try to win a resumption of Russian ammonia exports and the lifting of some sanctions and restrictions.
Kuleba traveled to Equatorial Guinea for two days earlier this week as part of the Africa tour where he said he had discussed food security.
Russia’s city of St Petersburg is hosting a Russia-Africa summit on Thursday and Friday and the Kremlin has said that 17 African heads of state will speak at the event.
Moscow has suggested that it can help Africa with both commercial and free shipments of Russian grain.
