'There's clearly a marketplace for Russian in Africa - but it's not about institution building'

Vladimir Putin told African leaders on Wednesday that Russia was their best partner, accusing what he cast as a colonial West of trying to exploit the continent's resources and holding back development. He was speaking in Moscow at the third Russia-Africa summit as the Kremlin seeks to expand its diplomatic, economic and military influence in Africa. And we can see live pictures right now as the three-day summit enters its third and final day. And for more on this, I can welcome Alex Vines, who is director of the Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Good morning, Alex, and thank you very much for joining us. Vladimir Putin is pitting Russia against the West in Africa. How receptive are African governments to his message? Yeah, I mean, they're pretty receptive because you've got 48 African countries out of 54 attending the summit. The number of heads of state and heads of government that are attending the summit are up to 22. The last summit had 17, which was just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And to put it into context, India tried to hold its own Africa summit earlier this year, but it had such a low kind of confirmation turnout that they decided to postpone it. They claimed it was postponed for health reasons. so so there is clearly a marketplace for the Russian Federation uh in Africa that's what this summit clearly demonstrates now what is the big prize for Russia in Africa and also what is there in it for African countries themselves in this relationship well there is the numbers game i mean bear in mind that 25 percent of the UN General Assembly is African and so votes in international fora really matter and so Russia is looking for for for supportive votes or at least abstention regarding the the Ukraine war and and other issues so that's one thing uh there is trade so that's about exporting Russian defense equipment Russian security expertise uh its nuclear capability capabilities investing in gas and minerals those are all things also that Russia it has on offer, and also particularly the export of fertilizing grain. That's very important for food security for a number of African countries. Now, Russia has been involved in military operations in recent years in cooperation with several African governments, particularly in the form of the mercenary group Wagner. This has been lucrative for those involved, but has it actually helped Russia's image in Africa? No, I mean, look, this is where the contradiction is, that the African Union, the pan-African body, has a decree that there shouldn't be foreign mercenaries on the African continent, yet that's what Wagner was. Its successor the Africa Corps is much closer attached to the Russian defense establishment, so is it mercenary, is it not? It could be seen as a kind of auxiliary military support instrument of the Russian state. And it has played a role in a number of African countries. It's very present in the Central African Republic. It's active in Niger. It's very active in Libya and in Mali. And to a lesser extent, it has some presence in Niger. Sorry, in Burkina Faso. Its record is very mixed. It is providing, I was in West Africa recently and learning about its provision of security for convoys for some of the mining industry for exporting a gold out of West Africa, particularly in Mali. It's also been involved in foiling or contributing to foil coups. The most recent is Niger, but it probably has done that in the Central African Republic. But you can see the serious human rights allegations on its behavior. It's not about institution building or security sector reform. It's basically a Praetorian guard for presidencies and for providing protection of commercial investments such as the mining industry. Now, Russia has done fairly well in getting its message across in Africa regarding the Ukraine war. In fact, you might even say that in some parts it has won the propaganda battle. But has this, this has also resulted in a lot of Africans going to Russia and probably unbeknownst to them, fighting for Russia and sometimes dying for it. Yeah, look, this is the really disturbing part of the Russia-Africa relationship. There are all sorts of problems with it, but I'd say that the use of disinformation by Russia, trolls, stirring things up to try and create market opportunity, problematizing countries with more democratic, open traditions, and then this false recruitment, telling Africans that they're coming to the Russian Federation to have respectable jobs and then they find out that they're either in the defence industry and factories producing munitions or on the front line, it's very problematic. I was in Kenya just a couple of weeks ago talking to a high-level Kenyan official about this and they described how the recruitment of this is all through smoke and mirrors, it's all very informal and it's very difficult then to get the repatriation of Africans back to their countries, given that these are very informal processes, which the Russian state denies. So absolutely right. This is a really alarming part of the Russian model. And there are significant numbers of Africans now in the Russian Federation. A number of them probably are making reasonable money, but a lot of them have realized that they've been duped and they would like to return home and there lies the problem of African governments. Now you said earlier that African governments are quite receptive to Russia but have there been countries on the continent that have been more critical of Moscow's overtures? Yes there has although it kind of has changed so just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine Kenya was very outspoken in the UN at the U.N. uh yet uh the Kenyan president, President Ruto is is in Moscow for this summit um i think we've got to really think of this as multi-polarity that Africans want reasonable relationships with as many countries as they can have they don't want to be pigeonholed between east and west or north and south and that's what's in action here i still myself am slightly puzzled that it's been as successful uh to get 22 African heads of state up from 17 the last summit to to this one compared with how the Indians have struggled with their summit but maybe it's to do with the india didn't put enough effort into the kind of the incentives to get people there there's another big summit coming up uh next month which is the Turkey Africa summit we'll see how that does thank you very much for that Alex Vines who's the Africa director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.