Analysts are still assessing and re-assessing the implications of Russia’s war in Ukraine for the rest of the world. Africa cannot escape those impacts.
The UN General Assembly’s overwhelming condemnation of the invasion on March 2nd gave African countries their opportunity to consider their positions. Just twenty-eight of Africa’s 54 countries voted in favour of the resolution, while 16 abstained and one, Eritrea, opposed the motion. The rest avoided voting by not showing up.
African antipathy towards censuring Putin’s administration partly reflects their military links to Russia, Kenyan political activist Nanjala Nyaboka said on Twitter. Africa bought almost 50% of its military equipment from Russia in 2015–2019, almost double its weapons imports from the US and China, according to the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Writing for Bloomberg.com (4/11), Paul Richardson analysed South Africa’s stance, exploring the country’s historic relationship with Russia. Its response to the war reflects an attempt to balance those historic ties with its economic links to the US and Europe, it said.
Russia was a key ally in the ruling African National Congress’s fight against White-minority rule that ended in 1994, and like South Africa, is a member of the five-nation group of emerging markets known as BRICS. Nevertheless, Russia’s economic ties to South Africa are negligible when compared with the EU and the US, which along with China rank as its top three trading partners.
The US and EU expressed frustration with South Africa’s abstention. Acting US Ambassador Todd Haskell, speaking on Johannesburg-based broadcaster eNCA, cited a quote by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, repeated by former South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that failing to take a position in conflicts between oppressors and the oppressed means to side with the oppressor, not to be neutral. EU Ambassador to South Africa Riina Kionka also expressed frustration with South Africa’s position. “Sitting on the fence is not an option,” she said in an emailed response to questions. “Once we figure out what the South African government stance really is” the EU will consider what the repercussions are, she said.
Meanwhile AFP, in a story carried by France 24 (11/3), reported that Russia and its long-time ally Sudan, who also abstained at the UN, were ramping up their ties with Russia eyeing Sudan’s gold wealth and strategic position. Khartoum has lost crucial Western support since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military coup in October 2021, a move that triggered broad condemnation and punitive measures, including a suspension of $700m in US aid.
On February 23rd, the day before Russia invaded its neighbour, a Sudanese delegation headed by powerful paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo arrived in Moscow for an eight-day visit. The two sides discussed “diplomatic, political and economic topics”, as well as “Russian-Sudanese national security… joint cooperation and counterterrorism”, said Daglo, commonly known as Hemeti, at a news conference upon his return.
Sudan relied militarily on Russia under strongman Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in 2019 following three decades in power marked by international isolation and crippling US sanctions. Russian private companies have reportedly benefited from Sudan’s gold mines by ramping up ties with the military and Daglo’s powerful Rapid Support Forces, which emerged from the Janjaweed militias accused of atrocities during the Darfur conflict that erupted in 2003.
“Moscow has been following a clear and coherent policy… to serve its interests” in Sudan and in Africa more broadly, analyst Khaled al-Tijani said. “Russian investments in Sudan, especially in gold, and ties with security forces have remained shrouded in ambiguity,” he added.
Researcher Ahmed Hussein said that Russia’s growing interest in Africa “puts Khartoum in the eye of the storm, turning it into a battlefield for an international conflict that goes far beyond its borders”. Many fear that Western opposition to the coup is pushing Khartoum further towards Moscow. “We’re basically offering Sudan to the Russians on a silver platter,” one Western diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Elsewhere in Africa, analysts are focussing on two key areas that are concerning the entire world – energy and food security.
In her weekly Foreign Policy Africa Brief (16/3), Nosmot Gbadamosi says that the aim of European leaders to end their reliance on Russian oil and gas “well before 2030,” could lead to new market gains for African countries such as Nigeria, Angola, Libya, and Algeria on liquified natural gas.
“It seems that Africa now is the most reliable alternative for these countries in Europe,” said Kennedy Chege, a researcher and doctoral candidate at the University of Cape Town, specialising in oil and gas law. “It essentially opens up a great opportunity for African countries to move in and get deals done quickly.”
However, while there is a huge amount of capacity on the continent, top producers lack the infrastructure that can quickly plug the gap. “The largest challenge is financing,” said Linda Mabhena-Olagunju, managing director at DLO Energy Resources Group, an independent power provider in South Africa. There has not been the incentive for foreign capital investments in African hydrocarbon infrastructure amid a global emphasis on developing renewable energy.
Indeed the idea that African gas could immediately replace Russian energy is a misconception, experts told Foreign Policy. For example, Nigeria’s OPEC production quota was raised this month to 1.73m barrels per day from April, but the country has struggled for months to reach assigned oil outputs and said its immediate focus was on meeting the current quota.
“We have spare capacity of about 600,000 barrels at the moment,” said Timipre Sylva, Nigeria’s minister for petroleum, “but it needs investment.” Similarly, Toufik Hakkar, the chief executive of Algeria’s state-owned energy firm Sonatrach, suggested that production will focus on growing domestic market demand and current client obligations.
In the long term, concludes Gbadamosi, sanctions against Russia create an opportunity for African leaders to rapidly invest in the infrastructure required to supply significant amounts of African gas to European markets. But in the short term their focus may well be narrower, ensuring that the needs of their own citizens and already-established clients are met.
As far as food security is concerned, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to disrupt Africa’s wheat supply and increase insecurity in some parts of the continent including Somalia, which is experiencing its worst drought in decades, saysCarlos Mureithi, QuartzAfrica.com’s East Africa correspondent (14/3)
“A decline in wheat trade will have a compound effect on the drought, as so much of our food comes from Russia and Ukraine. From the price of goods, to the actual supply, Somalia is going to feel the impact of this crisis for many months to come,” says Abdullahi Nur Osman, CEO of the Hormuud Salaam Foundation, a philanthropic organization that delivers aid to drought-impacted communities in Somalia.
Somalia imports most of its wheat from Egypt, which imports about 85% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of food globally, with the two exporting almost 12% of total calories traded in the world. The two countries are also leading producers of wheat which African countries heavily rely on them for. Eastern Africa, which meets most of its wheat demand through imports, gets 90% of its imported wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
Wheat and wheat products account for one third of the average cereal consumption in eastern Africa. “From Mogadishu to Moscow, the world is deeply interconnected,” says Osman.
One of the most distressing and immediate aspects of the war in Ukraine, of all wars, is the displacement of innocent people, now amounting to around three million according to most sources. Of these a number are from Africa, and the African Union (AU) said on March 1st it was “disturbed” by reports that African nationals in Ukraine had been prevented from safely crossing the border, said aljazeera.com (1/3)
Ukraine has become a popular choice for African students, who now account for nearly a quarter of the more than 76,000 foreign students in Ukraine, according to the BBC, which cited government data for its report. While the official count of African and Black people in Ukraine has not been updated in 20 years, Reuters reported that there were more than 16,000 African students in the country, citing figures from the education ministry.
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