“Our country will continue to provide full support to our African friends in different areas,” Putin said in a message 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”, according to the same source.
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 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.
Historical record of trade
However, “this does not reflect the potential we have, which must be maximized,” said the Russian Foreign Minister at the Sochi conference.
According to data from the Russian Export Center, Russia exported the most goods in 2021 to African countries.
Egypt swallows 28% of the total volume of Russian exports to Africa, with 4.2 billion dollars, Algeria 20%, or 3 billion dollars, Senegal and Morocco each absorb 8%, or 1. 2 billion dollars of Russian exports to Africa.
“Despite the artificial obstacles of the collective West, we continue to improve business support mechanisms, find effective logistical solutions and use new mutual settlement instruments that do not depend on negative external interference,” stressed Sergei Lavrov.
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 a favorable echo among of a large number of African leaders.
