On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin told African leaders that Russia was their best partner, denouncing what he characterized as a neo-colonial West for continuing to extract the continent’s resources while leveraging debt to stifle its economic progress.
The Kremlin chief was speaking at the third Russia-Africa summit in Moscow where delegations from 48 countries attended the event during which he held key talks with many of the 22 individual African leaders highlighting a position of authority and management over all these areas.
Wooing African leaders and others from the Global South has also been a significant part of Moscow’s strategy to mitigate risk by building alternative alliances to avoid relying on or being vulnerable to Western pressure.
Putin told the summit, “Africa is increasingly asserting itself as one of the key players in the global economy and politics. However, the emergence of a multipolar world is, of course, no easy task; it faces resistance from countries that are not prepared to accept this reality..”
He did not specify the countries but went on to speak about what he called active attempts by Western countries to force Africans back into bonded labour and to force a vulnerable party into an agreement against its best interests.
Putin told the summit that Russia championed more African influence in the IMF and World Bank and was poised to initiate joint transportation and agricultural infrastructure developments. Furthermore, Moscow is also ready to supply grain and fertilizer to more than 40 African countries saying Russia had delivered 13 million metric tons of farm goods to Africa during the first three quarters of the year.
