Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up efforts to expand influence in Africa ahead of a summit with African leaders, saying Moscow can offer help and will not ask for anything in return, unlike what he says is an exploitative West.
The Kremlin said it expects 47 African leaders to attend the October 23-24 summit in Sochi, the first Russian-African summit and part of an ambitious effort to expand influence and business in Africa.
For Moscow, the prize is greater political influence on the 54-nation continent, which is rich in minerals and a potentially lucrative market for Russian-made weapons, according to Reuters.
As the world's largest producer of wheat, Russia is also looking to increase its supplies of grain and fertilizer to meet increasing demand from Africa's growing population.
US officials have said they will oppose the growing political and economic influence of Moscow and China in Africa. China has been present on the African continent for a long time, and the series of summits began in 2006.
In December of last year, then US national security adviser John Bolton accused Moscow of "corrupt" and "predatory" business practices and of selling weapons and energy in exchange for votes in the United Nations. Moscow has rejected those accusations.
Yesterday, Putin gave the clearest presentation of his ambitions yet, warning of increasing competition when it comes to Africa. Hitting back, he accused the West of intimidating African countries to exploit the continent's resources.
"We are watching how a number of Western countries are pressuring, intimidating and blackmailing sovereign African governments," Putin told the TASS news agency. He did not name specific countries, but said that he was referring to the former colonial powers on the continent.
"They are using these methods to try to regain lost influence and dominance in the former colonies in a hurry to extract maximum profit and exploit the continent," he said.
Putin claims that Russia, unlike them, is ready to help without "political or other conditions" and to accept the principle of African solutions to African problems.
Western officials, however, claim that, like China, Russia has an advantage over the West - namely that the sale of weapons is not conditional on the improvement of human rights and governance.
During the Cold War, Soviet Moscow developed close relations with many African states, supporting post-colonial independence movements. Many of these ties were severed after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
However, Moscow's relations with Africa are now on the rise, Putin said, pointing to the military and technological agreements on cooperation that Russia has with more than 30 African countries that it supplies weapons to.
During the summit in Sochi, which will be hosted in addition to Putin by the Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sis, Russia plans to hold an arms fair presenting Russian weapons, including the S-400 defense system, as well as other military equipment.
Leaders of countries such as Angola, where Russia has invested in the diamond industry, and Ethiopia will be among the 10.000 politicians and businessmen attending the summit in Sochi. There will also be representatives from Nigeria, where Russians invest in the oil and gas industry, and Ghana. None of these countries had relations with Moscow during the Cold War.
However, in the field of trade, when it comes to Africa, Moscow lags behind the competition, according to Reuters. Russia announced that its trade with African countries increased to 20 billion last year, but this is still not enough to place Moscow in the top five trading partners. The first place on that list is still held by the European Union, followed by China, India, the USA and the United Arab Emirates.
Moscow helps governments put down rebellions
Russia's new role in the region burst into the spotlight last July when three Russian journalists were killed in the Central African Republic while investigating the alleged presence of a dubious Russian private military company known as the Wagner Group.
The Wagner Group, which is associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as "Putin's Chef," sent mercenaries to help the government of the Central African Republic quell the rebellion, according to Voice of America.
The governments of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are also reportedly asking Moscow for military help to quell the rebellions.
In Guinea, where police killed nine pro-democracy protesters last Sunday, Russian diplomats are backing repressive President Alf Conde's efforts to change the constitution to win a third term. The Russian aluminum company Rusal gets a third of the bauxite it needs from Guinea.
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