World
French-Speaking African States Under Kremlin’s Politico-Military Influence
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Russia has noticeably intensified its diplomatic relationship with French-speaking Africa after the second Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg. It has focused on dealing with growing French neo-colonialism which obstructs Russia’s desire to expand geopolitical and military influence, especially in the West African region. The republics of Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mali have come under the stringent control of the Kremlin, as leaders frequently shuttle between their capitals and Moscow.
Analysis indicates that Moscow’s geopolitical and military inroads are steadily gaining unshakeable grounds. It has tightened its hold across the Sahel-Saharan part of Africa and strategically extended such militarized influence towards the Gulf coastal West Africa. As well-shown, the Francophones are exhausted with France’s exploitative approach and are desperately for an alternative to building fairer and more mutual economic relations.
Policy experts and researchers have widely written in their published papers about (i) Russia’s alleged involvement in the political changes in these French colonies with the fractured economy and (ii) the fact that the region constitutes a nutritious breeding field for armed Islamic jihadist groups, demonstrates Russia’s first drastic step towards combating terrorism and ultimately penetrating into the entire G5 Sahel in West Africa.
Despite this widely published allegation of determining political directions, Moscow officially said it was rather seriously concerned about the economic under-developments and the deepening instability as well as the impoverished population in the region. Moscow has showered humanitarian assistance, described as “delivery at no cost” and intended to ensure food security during the fourth quarter of 2023, on these countries.
While updating the implications of this ‘free food’ as its strategic part of the soft power, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mali have battered their natural resources, in exchange for creating military bases in the respective territories. Russian state-owned arms trader Rosoboronexport, as part of signed military-technical agreements, has delivered Russian-made combat and transport helicopters, armoured personnel carriers, small arms and ammunition to these Sahel-Saharan African countries, the Vedomosti newspaper reported.
Oleg Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large at the Russian Foreign Ministry and head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum spoke in an interview with RIA Novosti and explicitly pointed to the fact that Russia has no military bases nor military troops in Africa. “We don’t have a military presence there. There are appeals to the Russian side for help in ensuring security. This is not a military presence. Military presence is when troops are sent. We send instructors at the request of the African states themselves. But all this is not a military presence,” Ozerov said.
From late last year to almost half of 2024, the focus has been on West Africa. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received almost 10 foreign ministers (including Nigeria, Gambia, Gabon, Mali and Sierra Leone) and the Kremlin hosted Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, then Chadian Transitional President Mahamat Idriss Deby in January, followed by Guinea-Bissau leader Umaro Sissoco Embalo. Moscow is moving further down from the Sahel-Saharan region, an elongated landlocked territory located between North Africa (Maghreb) and West Africa, to the Atlantic coast of West Africa.
On May 9, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Guinea Bissau leader Umaro Sissoco Embalo as one of the special guests to the celebrations. It was simultaneously intended to strengthen the relationship. Umaro Sissoco Embalo was already here four times during the past couple of years since the ‘special military operation’ began, and as part of the team to discuss peace initiatives with the Kremlin. He was at the second Russia-Africa summit held in July 2023.
In a speech on that day, Putin first reminded, among other indelible facts, of the successful defeat of Nazism and asserted Russia’s independence, and the support it (then Soviet Union) provided others to their anti-colonial struggles and self-determination. Putin stressed, “Africa is now building up capacity and aspires to emerge as an effective powerhouse in a multipolar world with its unique identity by making confident strides in nurturing a genuine sense of political and economic sovereignty.”
During the exclusive talks with Guinea-Bissau’s delegation, including Guinea-Bissau’s Chief of the General Staff and army generals. Putin reiterated expanding bilateral partnership in economic, scientific and technological spheres, on grounds that ties between the two countries are rooted in long-standing traditions of friendship, as well as the principles of equality and mutual respect. “We have been maintaining effective inter-parliamentary and inter-agency ties too. Today, we have an opportunity to discuss our performance under bilateral agreements in various sectors and further steps to expand our cooperation. I must note that students from your country continue to study in Russia. We are ready to offer Guinea-Bissau an even bigger quota,” he told the delegation.
Russia has been paying special attention to its relations with African countries and seeking to ease its debt burden. But also for Putin, military-technical cooperation is at the prominent spot during closed-door negotiations. Russia has focused on dealing with France in most Francophone countries in West Africa.
Umaro Sissoco Embalo, on his part, expressed gratitude for the support which Russia has been giving to the Government and the people of Guinea-Bissau. Over 70 per cent of Guinea-Bissau’s servicemen and civilian officials were trained in the Soviet Union. This explains the necessity for the level of close interaction and cooperation with Russia.
Series of conferences and meetings proliferated these years, and Russia has a new dialogue format – the Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, at the level of foreign ministers. Without a doubt, Russia is looking to gain political support from African countries on some issues, including the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia. Reports indicate Moscow is seriously working on arrangements for the first meeting of this kind, which is scheduled to take place in November 2024 in Sochi. Notwithstanding that, St Petersburg’s late July Russia-Africa summit resulted in the adoption of a solid package of joint documents, including a detailed declaration and a specific plan of action until 2026.
Nonetheless, many experts say Russia has its distinctive style and approach, set out to battle against the exploitation of resources, or better still what is often phrased as “the scramble for resources” in Africa.
Samir Bhattacharya, an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), where he works on geopolitics with particular reference to Africa in the changing global order, says Africa, especially the French-speaking West African countries continues to face multiple democratic challenges with a wider negative impact across the region. The narrative that depicts Russia as a proactive coup advocate is compelling and seems to hold water. Russian flags are being flown in the streets in West Africa. The entire region is experiencing sharp disintegration characterized by differences in political systems, economic structures and cultural norms in member countries. Unfortunately, military takeovers have become a distinctive feature (or accepted norm) of regime change in West Africa.
Bhattacharya said it would be overly generalizing to attribute the coup to neocolonialism alone. With eight coups in three years, the Sahel region in West Africa is most affected by coups. However, a close examination reveals that the Sahel Region has endured violent extremism, civil unrest, and poor governance for a very long period. It unmistakably shows how France and other Western powers are losing ground in this region. Frustration with France and other foreign powers increased fairly naturally as their military intervention failed to stem the Islamist insurgency that was spreading throughout the region.
Therefore, the West cannot address the issue merely by blaming Russia. And Russia can not blame only neocolonialism. There is fear that as many African nations continue to be beset by widespread complaints of poor governance, nepotism, and distress, many more within the region and beyond may eventually see military takeovers of a similar nature. Tracking all these bilateral developments implies that Russia’s engagement in Africa definitely requires an in-depth study, according to Bhattacharya.
In another insightful interview, Professor Sergiu Mișcoiu at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), where he serves as a Director of the Centre for International Cooperation and as Director of the Centre for African Studies, discusses the political situation in the French-speaking West African countries, the existing multiple challenges and Russia’s diplomacy within the context of current geopolitical changes and the scramble for influence in Africa.
Professor Sergiu Mișcoiu argued that neo-colonialism in Africa has been a growing reality after the end of the Cold War and reached a pinnacle by the early 2000s. More salient cases are the former French colonies, and Russia is focused on uprooting France from the continent. Vladimir Putin has intended to restore the mightiness of the Soviet Union, including its influence over the African continent. But unlike the USSR, Russia didn’t and doesn’t dispose of the financial and logistic resources needed to massively invest in the key sectors.
Compared, China has disposed of important financial resources and has been incomparably less violent than Russia between the 1990s and the end of the 2010s in spreading its influence all over the African continent. China succeeded in impressing via its investments in the road and railway infrastructures, in ports, in some major public buildings and in other sectors. As compared to China, Russia made almost no difference through its modest investments and bet its entire strategy on this mixture of, on one hand, the renewal of the former USSR networks and the Soviet past, and on the other, the direct intrusion in the domestic conflicts of the most vulnerable African states.
Ultimately, African countries are bound to wake up to a common understanding of the true meaning of their colonial past for the present and determine their future existence. In fact, the leaders and the elites have to engage in development decision-making processes, and at the same time have to play their roles as autonomous actors instead of being pawns in global politics.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Accessing the US Dollar in the East Africa region has now been made easier with the expansion of the stablecoin settlement infrastructure of SCRYPT.
This development enables banks, payment providers and corporate treasury teams to move value into and out of the continent in real time.
Businesses paying international suppliers frequently have to convert local currency into USD before purchasing stablecoins for settlement, incurring FX conversions and spreads before any payment is made.
But SCRYPT is eliminating this intermediate conversion by enabling direct settlement corridors for local African currencies into stablecoins.
This development allows businesses to move from local currency to stablecoin settlement in a single licensed transaction, without first sourcing rationed bank dollars, as stablecoins are increasingly becoming settlement infrastructure rather than an investment product.
The expansion adds settlement support across four African currencies: the Kenyan shilling (KES), Tanzanian shilling (TZS), Rwandan franc (RWF) and Ugandan shilling (UGX). Each corridor is delivered through the same full-stack infrastructure our clients already use for trading, custody and treasury operations.
Speaking on this, the chief executive of SCRYPT, Norman Wooding, said, “Across Africa, stablecoin adoption is driven by economic need, not speculation.
“Businesses here are not chasing yield; they are trying to pay suppliers and manage treasury without losing margin to a banking system that rations dollars. Licensed, fair-rate dollar access is the clearest proof of what this infrastructure is for.”
Also commenting, the Managing Director of Markets & Trading at SCRYPT, Mr Gabriel Titopoulos, said, “Until now, reaching stablecoins from local African currencies meant buying scarce dollars and incurring several layers of conversion costs.
“SCRYPT removes this friction. Firms and payment providers can now settle straight from local currencies through live corridors, with local partners.”
World
African Graduates Association Promoting Multifaceted Initiatives With Russian Educational Institutions
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
In preparations for the third Russia-Africa Summit, scheduled for late October 2026, Dr Francois Ngan, deputy chairman of the Union of Associations of African Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities, during an official working visit, has held a consultative meeting with Professor Vladimir Filippov, the President of the Russian University of Peoples’ Friendship (RUDN), and former Minister of Higher Education of Russia, Chairman of the National Commission for Accreditation of Higher Education.
RUDN is an educational institution established in 1960, primarily to provide higher education to Third World students. It has now become a popular multidisciplinary spot for many students, especially from developing countries. The university offers various academic programmes and has research infrastructure that comprises laboratories and interdisciplinary centres. The university is named after the former Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba.
Dr Francois Ngan and Professor Filippov discussed the importance of the Graduates Association as a continental platform dedicated to strengthening unity, cooperation, and promoting shared progress among African graduates who studied in the former Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation. They also reviewed multifaceted initiatives that could bring together alumni associations from across Africa, whose members obtained education and professional training, and cultural experiences in Soviet and Russian institutions of higher learning.
Professor Filippov expressed optimism in addressing emerging challenges as a result of shifting geopolitical changes, emphasised strategic cooperation in the educational sphere with Africa, in general, and with the Republic of Cameroon, in particular, and further about the integration of African students during their studies in the Russian Federation.
The meeting also touched on academic and scientific work, the possibility of rewriting a scientific thesis, and the official organisation of transferring versions translated into six languages for the library of RUDN. Significant questions relating to Russia’s educational opportunities, collaborations and partnerships involving African countries were thoroughly discussed.
The Union of Associations of African Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities was created under one continental umbrella to promote friendship, for professional networking, to engage in cultural exchange, and with particular emphasis on forging strategic cooperation between Africa and Russia.
World
Russia to Support Industrial Growth, Technological Advancement and Supply Chain Resilience across Africa
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
With the heightening of geopolitical rivalry and competition, a new Russia-Africa working group has emerged as a significant institutional mechanism and plans to focus on facilitating and monitoring strategic investments, industrialisation, and infrastructural development—the Strategic Action Plan 2023-2026—that was outlined during the second Russia-Africa summit, in St.Petersburg, the second largest city in the Russian Federation.
While substantial progress has, largely, lagged on the multidimensional economic front with Africa primarily due to its internal difficulties and the complexity of relations with its former Soviet neighbours, Russian officials believe there still remains huge untapped potential in strengthening bilateral cooperation. As planned, President Vladimir Putin has already signed an executive order that directs Moscow to host the forthcoming third Russia-Africa summit in October 2026.
On June 30, a regular meeting of the Business Council on Africa was held under the chairmanship of the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry. It was dedicated to issues of trade, economic and investment cooperation with Africa. The group discussed the current state and prospects for the implementation of policy initiatives with an emphasis on assisting the countries of the continent, strengthening their economic, energy, technological and food sovereignty, as well as training specialists for Africa.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has reiterated that Russia-Africa relations primarily depend on an understanding of the importance of collective action based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and resolving common tasks. In the past few years, Russia-Africa cooperation has been noticeably strengthening. “We are deepening political dialogues, developing bilateral contacts with African countries, promoting cordial cooperation between ministries and departments, and expanding humanitarian exchanges. We are also continuing the structural diversification of trade partnerships and economic dimensions.”
“Next on the agenda is the launch of diplomatic missions in The Gambia, Liberia, Togo, and the Union of the Comoros,” Lavrov said at a meeting of the Business Council under the Russian foreign minister. Lavrov noted that Russian embassies began operating in three other African countries in 2025: Niger, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan. A new Department for Partnership with Africa was also established. According to the top diplomat, “expanding Russia’s diplomatic presence on the continent contributes to developing relations.”
There are already 45 Russian embassies operating in Africa. The Russian foreign minister noted that Moscow is quickly rebuilding its presence in African countries, which sharply declined during the collapse of the Soviet Union. “There will be literally four or five countries left where we still need to establish full-fledged embassies, and then, we will have 100 per cent coverage of the entire African continent with our diplomatic presence,” Lavrov emphasised.
After the first summit in October 2019, the Foreign Ministry also created the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. Its main tasks include controlling the roadmap to Africa’s multidimensional cooperation and guiding potential Russian investors to the continent. This also underscored the priority and post-Soviet solidarity Russia currently attaches to its policy towards Africa, within the growing framework of the emerging new architecture of multipolarity in the Global South.
In an interview in June 2026, the director of the Department of Partnership with Africa at the Foreign Ministry, Tatyana Dovgalenko, shared a few insights in the lead-up to the third summit. Furthermore, Dovgalenko explained that Russia would move away from security to concentrate more on economic issues, especially to team up with African colleagues to streamline mechanisms for implementing projects that will ensure food security and agriculture, and help Africa in installing processing facilities to support its self-sufficiency. She also emphasised energy and vital infrastructures, and the third direction was to simultaneously work more coherently with sub-regional organisations.
Over the past few years, bilateral relations have been increasing. There are positive dynamics in trade turnover, estimated at $30 billion. Steps are being taken to build payment systems, preferably in national currencies, while Russia looks to open four more diplomatic offices, bringing the total to 48 across Africa. Russia is currently training 37,000 African students, but only approximately 1/3 on state scholarships in Russia’s educational institutions. “We are ready to share valuable experiences of building a sovereign development model with African partners to achieve self-reliant economic growth based on their own resources and capabilities. Russia aims at creating processing capabilities and localising production, and provides access to advanced technological solutions,” underlined Dovgalenko in her interview with New Eastern Outlook.
For African countries that have endured difficult decades on the path to political independence, it is now important to take full control over the untapped resources, direct income and revenue toward stimulating the national economic sector, rather than paying for the well-being of the Western “golden billion” during this changing geopolitical era, according to Dovgalenko.
According to reports, the forthcoming Russia-Africa summit will have an economic agenda, including the digital economy, technology, artificial intelligence, healthcare, investment, and settlements in global trade. Of course, the agenda will also cover Africa’s political aspects. But if African friends bring along any specific ideas, Russia will give them serious attention. In addition, with continuity and consistency, pay increased attention to expanding ties with Africa’s regional integration associations.
Going forward, the focus will be on translating strong trade relations into deeper investment partnerships, fostering technology collaboration, strengthening industrial linkages and contributing towards the shared objectives set by the leadership of both African countries and Russia. At the third summit, the above-mentioned specific initiatives will be further designed. In this regard, the key document, the new action plan for the next three-year period (2027-2029), is intended to reflect dynamic realities in the future relations of Russia and Africa
