Russia’s aggression on Ukraine has been exposing Africa to supply chain destabilizations, financial instability and heightened food insecurity, thus gravely hurting millions of Africans and inflicting an increased potential for instability on some African states. Even so, and from the invasion onward, Russia has had no qualms about uninterruptedly reaching out to the Continent. So, it’s been preparing a Russia-Africa summit, putting forth dubious scenarios for mutual economic cooperation, taking part in joint exercises with African states, and sending Lavrov to such important countries as South Africa, Angola, Uganda, Sudan or Ethiopia.
Russia moved closer to Africa in recent years, with the seeming intent of recreating a strategic presence in the Continent in the post-Soviet era. So, and even though Russia hasn’t succeeded in developing a significant economic weight in Africa in the meantime, the fact is it expanded trade with African countries, it established ties in the energy sector and it attained a number of mining concessions. Russia also signed military-technical cooperation agreements with multiple African countries and, according to the Swedish institute SIPRI (p.7), it actually became the biggest major arms exporter to the Continent. In all this, Russia privileged creating partnerships with autocratic regimes, to which it provides assistance in exchange for political collaboration, economic arrangements or extractive access.
Yet, Moscow’s strategy in Africa also includes influence and disinformation campaigns, which are mobilized to foster sympathy toward Russia and hostility toward the West, but also to interfere in elections, as well as to inflame and exploit social tensions and support autocrats. Additionally, as pointed out by Joseph Siegle writing for the Marshall Center (pp. 81 and 87), such campaigns seek to discredit democracy and foster the perception that it offers no advantages over authoritarianism. The practical application of the anti-democratic worldview which Russia promotes in Africa, continues Siegle, is undermining legitimate governments, fomenting social polarization, propping up unconstitutional power, and tearing at the thin social fabric of many African societies.
From the invasion on, and even while Africa’s been facing supply chain disruptions and heightened food scarcity, Moscow’s been targeting the Continent with disinformation rationalizing the war and fostering anti-Western sentiment. Lavrov gave depth to this exercise when he alleged food markets were not being destabilized by the aggression on Ukraine, but rather by the Western sanctions on Russia. Later, he went on to accuse the West of presiding over a racist and neo-colonial division of the world, an accusation which has also been deployed by Putin himself. This is in logical continuity to one of Moscow’s typical propaganda ploys in Africa, which is to bash the West for alleged neo-imperialism, while attaching modern-day Russia’s image to the Soviet Union’s role in the anti-colonial struggles in Africa—in what seems to be a crude attempt to exploit the appreciation many Africans still have for the USSR, for the backing it provided to African liberation. However, and regardless of the anti-colonial rhetoric, Moscow apparently even went to the point of pressuring African students in Russia to accept enlistment for the war in Ukraine.
One of the key drivers of instability in Africa today is the Russian paramilitary entity known as the Wagner Group, which is of course also involved in the aggression on Ukraine. Even while it’s nominally private, Wagner has been consistently accused of being a foreign policy instrument for the Kremlin: a deniable, informal proxy by which Moscow pursues strategic goals abroad without having to compromise itself through official force deployments. Wagner is now in several African countries. In Sudan, where it went in concurrently with the Moscow-Khartoum approximation, it’s allegedly involved in spreading disinformation and in illicit activities connected to gold mining. In Libya, it’s collaborating with Khalifah Hifter’s faction and it’s entrenched in strategically important oil infrastructures, which gives it the tacit ability to compromise the now crucial supply of Libyan energy to Europe. And, in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR), where it’s providing assistance to Bamako and Bangui respectively, Wagner seems to be involved in torture, rape, summary executions and massacres, as well as in the abusive exploitation of resources. In addition, Wagner’s presence in the CAR accompanies the Russophile transformation which has taken over that country in recent years, and which is expressed in things like the embedding of Russian citizens in the governmental structure, the adoption of Russian as one of the CAR’s official languages, and even the recruitment of Central Africans by Wagner itself for combat in Ukraine.
Russia has for some time now been looking to expand its influence in the Western Sahel, a region plagued by persistent conflict fueled by jihadi insurgency. So, it’s been deepening ties and developing security cooperation with the military juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso. This has been occurring against the backdrop of a deterioration in relations between those juntas and France, something which Russia itself has been nurturing through disinformation efforts, and which has already led to the end, in mid-2022, of the anti-terrorist assistance missions by France and by its European allies in Mali, and also to the recent cancellation of the French mission in Burkina Faso. Furthermore, it was concurrently with the Kremlin’s approximation to the region that, in late 2021, the Wagner Group went into Mali to provide assistance to Malian forces in the fight against jihadism. More recently, and according to the President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo, Wagner purportedly established a similar arrangement with the Burkinabe junta. In Mali, operations involving Wagner are characterized, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), by a normalization of indiscriminate violence against civilians. Also, and since European forces left that country, there’s been a rise in the extent of ungoverned territory, along with a strengthening of the jihadi insurgency. As pointed out by a recent study for the Terrorism Combat Center at West Point, Wagner is not just incapable of filling the security vacuum which the departure of European forces brought about, but the violence against civilians which it typifies has actually bolstered jihadi recruitment in the area. So, the study adds, Wagner is in fact aggravating the jihadi threat in Mali. To that, you can add that a growth of the jihad in Mali could make utterly intractable the already chaotic security situation in Burkina Faso, and worsen that of the littoral states of the Gulf of Guinea, which are already threatened by the regional expansion of the jihad. Even so, Wagner—perhaps not contented by the havoc it’s inflicting on Mali—is also reportedly working with rebels in Chad to destabilize that country’s government.
Africa should liberate herself from the turbulence Russia brings to her soil. That, however, may not be all that simple. The fact is that Moscow developed relevant relations in the Continent, and many African countries have come to depend either on Russia’s assistance, or on imports of Russian grain or defense equipment. Russia’s ties with Africa even seem to have played a part in multiple African countries’ decisions not to sanction Russia, nor vote against Moscow in UN General Assembly resolutions on the war in Ukraine.
Freeing Africa from Russia’s harmful influence is, of course, a choice belonging to Africans alone. However, and as pointed out by a recent study for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (pp. 26-29), the West can and should support such a purpose, by means of policies encouraging the strengthening of democracy in the Continent, promoting regional security, and backing Africa’s economic development.
A democratic, noticeably developing Africa wouldn’t need to depend on Putin’s Russia. Moreover, it would take on a key position in the global economy. As asserted by Joseph Sany of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Africa, being endowed with 60 percent of the globe’s uncultivated arable soil and a vast natural and mineral wealth, has therefore the potential to feed itself and become a global supplier of food and resources, thus solidifying global supply chains—and, adding to Sany, freeing those supply chains from disruptions such as those caused by the aggression on Ukraine.
Even while still afflicted by grave infrastructural and technological gaps, the fact is that Africa has been undergoing rapid economic growth, with that trend being expected to continue. Additionally, Africa is interested in developing its productive power, besides enjoying rapid urbanization and a youthful demography, and also a free trade area encompassing 55 African economies.
Africa’s modernization could be vigorously accelerated via the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, by which the G7 intends to invest $600 billion in Africa and in other regions in the next few years. Moreover, the United States are preparing to invest $55 billion, and the European Union €150 billion, in an African Continent which could easily become a key strategic and commercial partner to the West. It’s important for those investments to be geared toward unleashing Africa’s potential, improving Africans’ lives and fully integrating the Continent in global markets. That is key to realizing the African design for a peaceful, prosperous and dynamic Africa.
