On his working visit to the headquarters of the African Union (AU) in July 2026, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held substantive political consultations with Chairperson of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, reaffirming the desire to raise Russia’s relations to a higher stage with Africa.
The main topics discussed were the current state of affairs and prospects for expanding relations with the African Union and its member states, including cooperation on regional and international issues. It was simply how to sustain, within the institutional framework, Russia-African Union cooperation.
It is significant to note that Russia shows special interest in stepping up interaction with integration associations, primarily the African Union, and with regional economic communities pursuing the goal of integration. For this purpose, a new department—the Department for Partnership with Africa—was recently created at the Russian Foreign Ministry. The summit’s agenda will focus on matters of Russia-African Union cooperation in practical areas but will, of course, also discuss pressing regional and international political questions.
During the meeting, the key traditional themes are based on expanding the multifaceted Russia-African Union cooperation in areas of mutual interest, which include security, finance, industry, trade, education, and energy; healthcare; as well as humanitarian, educational, cultural, and sporting contacts.
Stay ahead of the geopolitical week.
MD Briefing delivers expert analysis across five global fronts — the Indo-Pacific, energy, geoeconomics, European security, and the Middle East — every Monday morning. Free.
This definitely requires the possibility of launching a sector-specific dialogue mechanism, involving the ministries and institutions of Russia and the African Union. Therefore, Russia reaffirmed support for Africa’s development priorities as articulated in Agenda 2063: “The Africa We Want” while underscoring the importance of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the continent’s industrialization and economic transformation agenda.
On infrastructure and energy, the two sides expressed interest in exploring opportunities for collaboration in support of the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), energy access, industrial development, transport connectivity, and technological advancement.
In pursuit of peace and sustainable development, Russia will maintain long-term multifaceted relations with the Alliance of Sahel States (Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso).
There are security challenges in a number of African states, such as the Sahel, the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, and Libya. Russia, however, supported the approach: the African solutions to African problems principle. It means Africans, in implementing security, must adopt African approaches to addressing their own African problems, possibly with financial support from the UN Security Council.
This year, the African Union renewed the 2025 theme, Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations, for another decade. Russia reaffirms its support advocating for the eradication of contemporary practices of neocolonialism. Africa is a leading center of this multipolar structure. In addition, Russia recommends for Africa to take serious steps for the achievement of this goal as an important condition towards building a fairer multipolar world order.
The meeting made reference to the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan (2023-2026) and Russia-AU Commission Action Plan (2023-2026), with a view to adopting a new action plan for the next three-year period (2027-2029) to identify and address existing gaps and further deepen cooperation in areas of mutual interest during the upcoming third Russia–Africa summit.
Given that Africa is now part of the evolving geopolitical process, Russia is consistently taking steps in advancing a constructive agenda with the continent. Thus, the African Union officials have accepted invitations to attend the forthcoming third Russia-Africa summit scheduled for late October 2026 in Moscow, Russia. The first (2019) and the second (2023) summits, with several bilateral agreements and collective declarations, were held in the Russian Federation.
