Africa’s true allies are in Kyiv, not Moscow

The position of African countries during the voting in the UN General Assembly eloquently confirms this. However, Africa remains a hotbed of geitical confrontation.

Russian imperialists want to impose their will on the countries of Africa and take advantage of them in their interests. The Russia-Africa Summit, scheduled for July 27−28, should be seen as a preparation for the geitical gripe into which the Russians want to drive the peles of Africa.

In fact, this forum aims to form the impression of a breakthrough in the international isation of Russia, creating the illusion of support for the Kremlin by the so-called “world majority,” an important part of which is the African pulation of the planet. And while this participation in someone else’s performance is still relatively vuntary, African leaders should think about the re assigned to them.

In reality, it is not the sidarity with Russian flies that is in the interests of most pele and countries of the world, but the preservation of the effectiveness of international law and security architecture based on UN documents and institutions.

Clear principles and rules protect primarily those who cannot or do not plan to defend themselves with nuclear weapons and their murderous equivalents. Conversely, for the aggressor, which is today’s Russia, international law stands in the way. Therefore, Moscow seeks not only to destroy Ukraine, but also to discredit the rules that prohibit it from doing so.

The Kremlin’s global goal is to destroy the international order and, instead of the force of law, to impose the rule of force in relations between countries. This is something that threatens African countries no less than Ukraine.

Russia’s struggle against the current international security architecture threatens not only the return to times of the war of all against all, but also the disruption of sustainable develment programmes, climate change contr, and systemic international support for vulnerable societies in the fight against hunger and poverty.

Russia withdrew from the grain deal, and this threatens to increase prices for agricultural products and the emergence of an acute shortage of food available to African countries. Due to the Russian counteraction, in particular, the shelling of the port infrastructure and granaries of Ukraine, the charitable initiative of the President of Ukraine Grain from Ukraine, funded by the United Nations, is also at risk of disruption.

Russia invariably covers its struggle against the West (and in fact against the principles of civilized coexistence in the world) with anti-conial rhetoric inherited from the Soviet Union.

Probably, Moscow hes for widespread blindness in African countries, which Russia has chosen as its “wards.” After all, in the modern world, it is impossible to conceal the glaring facts of the Kremlin’s enslavement of dozens of indigenous peles of the Russian Federation — depriving them of their languages, rights, and prospects.

Meanwhile, Russia’s conial appetites are not at all limited to its own (the world’s largest) territory, as well as neighbouring Ukraine. The Russian tsars were late to the redistribution of the African continent by Eurean conizers in the 19th century. Now, Putin’s regime seeks to make up for what was lost and seize the natural resources of Africa.

Russia uses mercenaries of Wagner PMC to interfere in the internal affairs of the continent’s states, implementing erations to overthrow legitimate governments (Mali, Burkina Faso). Instead of guarding, Russian “helpers” provoke pitical instability and only exacerbate d problems in African countries. The activities of Russian mercenaries fuel the flames of separatism and religious extremism.

What pitical model can Russia export to Africa, if it is a corrupt, aggressive dictatorship that keeps its pulation in submission through repression and zombifying praganda? Moscow can offer nothing but corruption, lies, terror, and wars to Africa.

The Kremlin considers the countries of “Black Africa” underdeveled, naturally prone to atrocities and barbarism. Unlike the West, Russia will not, as they say, “impose democracy.” Instead, Russia came to corrupt its elites and teach them to keep their peles in lawlessness.

By methods of blackmail and bribery, Moscow is trying to get the votes of African countries in the UN. These are votes against Ukraine and against international law. However, so far, Russian diplomacy has not won the coveted victories.

On the contrary, after two tours of African countries by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and the launch of a new strategy for Ukraine’s interaction with Africa, Kyiv’s position in the General Assembly is becoming stronger. African countries repeatedly support resutions aimed at restoring international law. These votes meet primarily the national interests of the African countries themselves.

Lavrov can participate in courful African rituals as much as he wants, but that doesn’t change the fact that he represents a country with deep-rooted racism, xenhobia, and chauvinism. The true attitude of Russia towards African leaders was evidenced when it fired missiles at Kyiv during the stay of a peacekeeping delegation from African countries on June 23 this year.

Read also: FM Kuleba urges all nations to mount unified global response to Russia’s food terrorism

Independent Ukraine is the result of a long anti-conial struggle, whose milestones sometimes differed little from the events of African deconization. Ukrainians understand perfectly the national feelings of the peles of Africa, who do not terate arrogance and hypocrisy. We are natural allies in uphding the sovereignty and principles of international law that guarantee freedom and territorial integrity to all.

Indeed, the growth of Ukrainian interest in Africa is dictated primarily by the challenges of Russian aggression. But the mutual interest of African countries in Ukraine can bring them practical benefits. Ukraine is extremely effective in finding allies and supporters to repel aggression. This experience is invaluable and worthy of flowing for those who find themselves in a similar situation.

The common interest in ensuring food security has already been discussed. But there can be many more areas of mutually beneficial coeration: education, technogy, construction, energy, etc.

Read also: Kuleba starts third tour of Africa with Equatorial Guinea

Nowadays, Ukraine is discovering Africa, but this is not the first time we are here. After all, many positive examples of coeration with the USSR (the Putin regime parasitizes on the nostalgia for it) are in fact precisely the Ukrainian contribution and merit. It’s just that Ukraine itself did not get rid of Moscow’s conial domination back then, and therefore its pele, resources, and work for the benefit of international friendship were held under the guise of “Soviet” (and therefore “Russian”). It is time for Africa to rediscover Ukraine as well.

Center for Strategic Communication