St. Petersburg (New Ziana) – President Emmerson Mnangagwa arrived in Russia on Wednesday to attend a Russia-Africa Summit that seeks to deepen co-operation between Moscow and the continent.
Forty-nine African countries are taking part in the two-day summit, which is taking place amid unprecedented geopolitical rivalry between the West and Russia, lately increasingly playing out in Africa.
Ahead of the summit, whose main focus is mapping ways to deepen political and economic co-operation, a senior Russian diplomat said the West had put strong pressure on African countries to stay away from the gathering.
The West and Russia have locked horns geopolitically in Ukraine, where they are on opposite sides of a bitter war, and each is now wooing the world for support.
Africa, though directly affected by the one and half year conflict in terms of broken-down supply chains, has declared neutrality and largely watches from the terraces.
But, apparently, this is not good enough for the West, which, according to Russia’s ambassador-at-large Oleg Ozerov, frantically tried to coerce African states to boycott the summit.
The pressure, he said, came in the form of threats to withhold financial aid and other sanctions by the collective West.
President Mnangagwa hinted at such Western pressure over the summit two months ago, and said Zimbabwe would defy it.
For Zimbabwe, the summit presents yet another opportunity for the country to engage and re-engage more nations and add them to its expanding basket of friends and co-operating partners. President Mnangagwa is expected to hold bilateral talks with host President Putin and clinch a number of deals.
Ozerov said most African countries had also shrugged off the pressure and were attending the summit, the second between the two sides.
He said the West had been ‘literally discouraging African countries from travelling to Russia on a daily basis, bluntly demanding that African countries choose a camp – either you are with us or you are against us.'”However, we don’t see African countries following this position of dictate. It is evident that the Western bloc is struggling to bend all nations to this position for objective reasons,” Ozerov said.
Among other things, the summit will try and find ways to re-connect trade flows between Russia and Africa, particularly of agricultural commodities, that were broken down by the Ukraine conflict.
A number of countries in Africa heavily depended on food and fertiliser imports from either Russia or Ukraine, and the supply disruption caused by the war has triggered fears of hunger.
Zimbabwe imported wheat from Russia but is now self-sufficient. It, however, still depends on fertiliser imports from Russia. Also speaking ahead of the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country will support African efforts to achieve greater political and economic sovereignty through co-operation in the two areas.
The summit, he said, will help the two sides map ways and means to achieve that.
“Russia supports African states’ aspiration to achieve social and economic stability and progress,” he said.
“And of course, we will continue to assist our African partners in every way possible to strengthen national and cultural sovereignty to participate more actively in resolving regional and global issues.”Only five African countries, out of 54, are not taking part in the Russia-Africa Summit.
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