At the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019, officials bragged about signing deals worth $12.5bn. Few materialised. No wonder leaders from Kenya, Nigeria and other large economies have decided to skip the latest event
has never been so diplomatically isolated. Few heads of state have visited him since his invasion of Ukraine last year. So when African leaders arrived in St Petersburg on July 27th for the second Russia-Africa summit, it was something of a coup—so to speak—for Russia’s president. Yet the turnout shows the limits to Russia’s sway on the continent. Reports suggest that just 17 African leaders travelled, less than half the 43 who went to the first bash in 2019.
The African response to Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain initiative should be viewed in this primarily pragmatic context. On July 17th Russia said it would no longer honour the deal it signed a year earlier that unblocked an export channel for Ukrainian grain and helped push cereal prices down by 14%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, as working in the Horn of Africa, in particular, say Russia’s move will worsen inflation and hunger.
Still, Russia is a compelling partner for authoritarian regimes clinging to power. It has been Africa’s largest weapons supplier for more than a decade. Though more than half of these exports were to Algeria and Egypt, it also sells weapons to sub-Saharan African regimes such as Uganda more cheaply and with fewer strings than the West would attach.
All Russia’s efforts are backed up by propaganda. Its disinformation campaigns target influential African voices on social media. They are effective in part because the messages fall on fertile anti-Western ground, especially in French-speaking west Africa. In a poll of 23 African countries in 2022 Gallup found that the states with the highest approval ratings of Russia were Mali and Ivory Coast . The top seven were Francophone.
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