Putin’s Ambitions for the 2nd Russia-African Summit

It’s well known that the Soviet Union leveraged anti-colonial sentiment against the West during the early to mid -20th century to gain influence over the region.?However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990’s, Russia withdrew from Africa.?Most scholars agree that at the height of the Soviet’s transition to a multi-party system, preoccupied with domestic challenges, Russia’s presence in Africa reached an all-time low.?In 1991, the then president, Boris Yeltsin, announced that Russia’s foreign aid policy would come to an end.?By 1992, nine embassies and four consular offices were closed, while many cultural centers disappeared.

Vladimir Putin’s election in 2000, replacing Yeltsin, placed a high premium on rebuilding Russia’s stature as a global power.?Putin’s efforts included an aggressive policy of engagement in Eastern Europe, Mid East, and Africa.?He first visited the continent in 2006, promising $1 billion in investments and making a clear declaration of Russian’s interests to reset its position in Africa.?By the end of 2007, Russia had written off approximately $20 billion of debt incurred by African countries accrued during the Cold War years.

The Reset

Purposefully, Putin has started to re-establish Russia’s influence over legacy Soviet spaces in Africa and beyond. The Kremlin’s focus is to rebuild contemporary international relations by challenging the rules-based international liberal order, creating chaos, then working to resolve the disorder in a zero-sum gain strategy allowing Russia to re-joining leadership within world politics which is the United States and China.??

With strategic intent to be more assertive and dominate in world conversations, Putin acknowledges it must challenge the perception of the leaders it intends to share the world stage with.?Perception articulated by President Joe Biden, which is that “Russia was sitting on an economy of nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing more”. Or, in 2014, the comments of the late Senator John McCain, calling Russia “no more than a gas station masquerading as a country”.?These perceptions are being challenged in a way which allows the Kremlin to take advantage of their hybrid warfare capabilities against the West.??Developments such as the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014, the 2015 intervention in Syria to support and sustain the regime of Basher al-Assad?and the 2018 support in the Libyan civil war clearly demonstrate a rededicated from the Kremlin to reassert Russian influence.?

In Africa, Putin’s approach to challenging the status quo is far more nuanced, using insecurity and diplomatic disputes with Western powers to exploit conflict between U.S. policy and African national objectives.?The gap between the West and African leaders has provided an opening for Russia to expand its influence and strategic presence on the continent.

Putin uses a wedge approach to gain initial opportunity by exploiting perceived differences between them and Western partners.?For example, Russia clearly exploits anger directed at former colonial powers such as France to reduce French influence in areas such as Mali, Central African Republic, or Burkini Faso.?The Kremlin highlights U.S. insistence of human rights and transparent governance as a condition for trade and assistance, while Russia has no such “limitations” offering a less restrictive, less expensive partnering option.?There is no more blatant example of Russia’s soft influence campaign across Africa than the Russia-Africa Summit in 2019, attended by nearly every African head of state on the continent.?The impressive success of the 1St Russia-Africa Summit set conditions for further integration and influence to support achieving Kremlin goals in Africa.?How successful was the event-, far more successful than even the Russians had expected??According to most estimates and available documents, the results of the summit, included 92 agreements, contracts, and memoranda of understanding signed during the event.?Of the numerous agreements the Russia-Africa Summit sponsored, the most recent one, the announced potential agreement between Mali and Russia to bring Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) forces in to provide security against Islamic militants Mali will continue to battle after the proposed departure of the French task force.?The Prime Minister of Mali indicated that he initially discussed the potential deployment of Russian PMCs into Mali during the Russia-Africa Summit in 2019.?For Moscow, the summit had multiple benefits including signed contracts estimated at approximately $40 billion in revenue, a significant increase in the Putin regime’s prestige and further access and opportunity which will only re-enforce Putin and the oligarchs’ increasing positions on the African continent.?

The second Russia-Africa Summit is scheduled for November 2022 in St. Petersburg. Russia’s focus, outlined during the 2020 fall African Economic Development meeting, promote greater cooperation in the areas of security, technology, agriculture, energy, nuclear medicine, and geological exploration.?Despite existing challenges, Moscow plans to increase Russia’s position in Africa primarily through economic relationships. From Libya to Nigeria, Ethiopia to Mali, Moscow has been building key strategic economic and military alliances through an increasingly favorable public profile across Africa.

Strategy

At the inaugural summit in Sochi in 2019, President Vladimir Putin vowed that Russia was “not going to participate in a new ‘repartition’ of the continent’s wealth; rather, we (Russia) are ready to engage in competition for cooperation with Africa.”?We have a lot to offer our African friends,” Putin said at the summit attendees.

As designed, much of Russia’s efforts have benefited its oligarchical political structure through Russian state-owned agency exports of military products and services through bilateral agreements.?Many African countries have taken advantage of Russia’s “no-strings” offers, including Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Central African Republic, and Sudan. Beyond military equipment, the agreements contain provisions for countering terrorism and the joint training of troops.

Russia also has clear economic motives when it comes to natural resources. Although has its own domestic mineral wealth, Russia’s natural resources are difficult to extract, making it more cost effective to import them from other countries.?Notable exports to Russia are taking place in Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia.

Several Russian state-owned energy companies such as Gazprom, Rustec and Rosatom are also active in Africa, with key investments in the oil, gas and nuclear sectors in Algeria, Egypt, Uganda and Angola. It’s worth noting that state-led investments are often linked to military or diplomatic initiatives. For example, while an agreement is in place to construct two nuclear power plants in Nigeria, Russia has at the same time committed to countering terrorism there.?Characteristically, Russia links economic development to the security and stability of the host nation regime or government.

Implications

The consequences for the Russians is not simply about currency, although necessary to keep the oligarchs appeased.?The most dominant impact is the long-term influence which allows the Kremlin to forge agreements resulting in sweeping geopolitical shift in the balance away from freedom and democracies and towards authoritarian regimes.?For example, Russia’s quest for a long-term deep-water port across the continent afford both access to oil and gas and provides a foothold with geostrategic location to both monitor western activities as well as the potential use as a lily pad for expansion to other vulnerable states.?In the near term, Russia has largely achieved Putin’s strategic goals, providing Moscow greater influence regionally across the continent, expanding economic clout internal to the oligarchy, and increasing its broader negotiating position among the great powers.?

Putin sees the previous summit as a great success and will likely seek areas to expand current relationship and forge new ones as the dynamics of Africa and the increased importance of the continent becomes more important as a supplier of natural resources and a buyer of military hardware.

Author: J. David Pinkston

The views presented in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Reviewed and approved for publication by DoD May, 2022.

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