During its time in the past, the Soviet Union regularly initiated or facilitated numerous conferences, summits and round tables within the Non-Aligned Movement. This international association helped Soviet politicians to promote ideas of the anti-colonial movement in Asia and Africa, and to gain considerable influence in the former or still existing colonies. However, after the USSR collapsed, the activity of the Non-Aligned Movement immediately stopped, and the struggle against colonialism became unpopular among third parties.
That lasted about 30 years. However, the successor tothe Russian communist regime (Putin’s dictatorship) first built a strong authoritarian regime inside Russia, and then began to aggressively return their positions in Third World countries, primarily on the African continent.
The Kremlin has already organized large-scale Russia-Africa Summits twice (in Sochi in 2019 and in St. Petersburg in 2023), planning to conduct it every three years in the future. A regular dialogue called the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum was also developed. Under this “umbrella” various meetings, round tables, presentations of business projects, etc. take place. For example, the first ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum is to be held in Sochi on November 9-10, 2024. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has invited representatives of 54 states (that is, all political entities on the African continent) and 10 regional and subregional organizations to participate in the forum.
Undoubtedly, some European states – successors toformer powerful empires — still try to maintain itsdominance in one or another region of Africa. However, Russia and China jointly deny the interests of the former metropolises and sideline them in every possible way. For example, Russia began to successfully squeeze France out of the entire region of Equatorial Africa,having initially strengthened its positions in the Central African Republic (a former French colony)!
To strengthen its own positions in Africa, Putin’s Russiahad also improved its bilateral relations with some states of the continent, using not only political and economic methods, but also military ones. For instance, at the end of October this year, Moscow has deployed mercenaries from the African Corps in Equatorial Guinea. It is a paramilitary unit of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation that was created at the end of 2023 to protect Russian economic interests in Africa.
There are similar Russian contingents in Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, CAR and Niger. In some сases, the African Corps is nothing but the successor to the Wagner Group. It consists of those unreliable for the Kremlin (after the unsuccessful, however, extremely high-profile rebellion of the Wagnerites led by Prigozhin in the summer of 2023). Sometimes, the African Corps cooperates with mercenaries from other Russian private military companies (PMC Shield, Russian Security Systems/RSB-Group, Redut, Patriot, Sewa Security Services). According to the Russian media, the Russian PMCs mostly only guard important economic facilities — gold mines, diamond mines, uranium deposits, oil wells, etc. But it is not always done peacefully.
Since 2016, about 2,000 Russian mercenaries (who fought on the side of the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar and the Tobruk-based government in the civil war in Libya) are well-known for torture, numerous acts of vandalism and a brutal murder of people, including women and children. Russian mercenaries burned people alive in containers, threw prisoners into mines and wells, and buried people alive in graves (sometimes, whole families). Moreover, Russian mercenaries robbed, looted and deliberately took local population hostage to exchange for a ransom. Those captured who had no wealthy relatives were inhuman treated by Russian soldiers (mostly sadists): dismemberment of living people, breaking vertebrae, cutting belly open, grenade detonating in the groin, crushing bones with a sledgehammer, burning alive, etc.
In 2018, the bloody traces of Russian mercenaries were found in Sudan, Congo and the CAR, in 2019 – inMozambique and Mali, in 2020 – in Somalia, Burundi, Yemen, and further on the African continent. According to experts, the Russian PMCs’ mercenaries are currently present on the territory of 19 African countries!
For example, on October 21, 2024, pro-government Sudanese forces mistakenly shot down a large Il-76 cargo plane in the Malha area of North Darfur. There were Russian military specialists, weapons, ammunition and provisions on the board for the Sudanese regular army, surrounded by rebel groups in the city of El-Fashir. This incident has proved Russia’s involvement in the civil war in Sudan.
For sure, the Kremlin officials will try not to mention the “heroic pages” of Russian mercenaries on the “black continent” at the first ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, but to focus on the political and economic cooperation. However, this partnership is dangerous to African states, their political elites and populations.
The fact is that Russian presence in any African countrymay be beneficial in the short term, but not in the long term. There is no doubt that Russia will try to control local minerals. Taking into account the extensive development of the Russian economy (and a backward agrarian and raw material economy), Russian involvement in the extraction of natural resources will certainly lead to serious environment pollution, and perhaps even the destruction of local ecosystems, as this is exactly what we see on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Moscow’s influence on the internal politics of African countries will reduce the level of political culture, resulted in various corrupt schemes and permanent bribery.
The RF’s investment projects will surely have enslavingconditions, and long-term loans — extremely high interest rates. Thus, both authoritarian Putin’s Russia and communist China are similar in Africa. In general, the People’s Republic of China (unlike Russia) does not intervene in wars, civil conflicts and internal political struggles on the “black continent”, but uses methods of aggressive economic expansion in Africa. Chinese businessmen buy up everything that can be sold in Africa and invest their own capital wherever it is possible to invest it. Moreover, China deliberately makes obviously failed investment (in terms of expected demand and profit) in order to spread its influence in Africa.
The dictator Putin gave free food gifts to some African countries during these two Russia-Africa Summits. It should be emphasized that such gestures of the President of the Russian Federation are only one of the components of his unfair policy of food blackmail of some poor nations and hungry countries of the “black continent”. After all, the Kremlin, in fact, has blocked a number of transport corridors from Ukraine (which has been growing grain for export for several centuries). Instead, Putin loudly makes his little one-time gifts to African states, using them in his brutal game. By the way, a grain exchange initiated by the Kremlin during the BRICS Summit (Kazan, October 22-24) may also turn into a tool of blackmail in the future guaranteeing global food security.
As for the method of blackmail, Putin’s Russia also successfully uses African countries (primarily those with access to the Mediterranean coast) in order to control migration flows and latently manage them. The special services of the Russian Federation, in cooperation with international organized crime, influence the use of certain routes, the intensity of migration, and the determination of the final destination for migrants (today it is Spain, tomorrow — Germany, then — France, depending on Moscow’s needs to press somegovernment). In addition, this cooperation between Russia and Africa provides the Kremlin with unlimited opportunities for the infiltration of its own agents in the Maghreb and Mediterranean region.
Of course, within the framework of Russia-Africaconferences, forums and summits, Moscow is systematically working on the development of a simultaneous voting mechanism in the UN and in other international organizations. For example, to enable the Russian Federation and 54 African countries to unanimously condemn military operations in defense of the State of Israel from powerful terrorist groups with the support of other countries.
After all, Russia will try to gain support from Africa to ease or lift sanctions, or even better — to prevent the introduction of any restrictions by some countries on others, even if it is about a dictatorship, which committed aggression against democracy.
In general, Putin’s regime cynically uses various forms of cooperation with Africa to strengthen its influence on the continent. However, he is doing quite well at the moment. The question is whether the collective West will respond to this?