Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday promised “full support” from Moscow to African countries during a Russia-Africa ministerial conference in Sochi. “Our country will continue to provide its full support to our African friends in different areas,” declared Vladimir Putin in an address, read by his head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov to the conference participants.
This could be “sustainable development, the fight against terrorism and extremism, epidemic diseases, the resolution of food problems or the consequences of natural disasters”.
This conference, organized with senior officials from African countries on Saturday and Sunday on the shores of the Black Sea, follows two Russia-Africa summits, which took place in 2019 (Sochi) and 2023 (Saint Petersburg).
According to Sergei Lavrov, thanks to the “pace that was set” by these two summits, Russian-African relations are strengthening “more and more”. “We see progress in all areas” of cooperation, he said.
With this conference in Sochi, the Kremlin intends to provide a new illustration of the “multipolar world” that it wants to promote in its face-to-face with Westerners. It comes after the Brics summit in October in Kazan, still in Russia, where Vladimir Putin wanted to demonstrate the failure of the policy of isolation and sanctions initiated against Russia by Western countries, after the Russian assault in Ukraine in February 2022.
For several years, Russia, which was a key player in Africa during the Soviet era, has been pushing its pawns into African countries where Russian rhetoric against “neocolonialism” and for “a fairer world order” finds resonance. among a large number of African leaders.
