Russia’s quest to woo Africa is paying off

The West may like to convince itself that it is, in the words of one American diplomat, ‘strangling the Russian foreign ministry’, but it ought to look south for a rather different perspective. On Tuesday, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was in expansive mood as he announced the formation of a brand-new Department of Partnership with Africa.

Recognising that for years Moscow had neglected Africa, Lavrov blamed in part the bankruptcy of the late USSR and Russia in the 1990s, when embassies had to be shut down and sold off. I remember one polyglot diplomat who, while serving in Nigeria, had taken to spending his mornings giving English, French and Russian classes to make ends meet because his salary was so often in arrears. However, he also blamed the ‘strategic mistake’ of focusing too much on relations with the West and unrealistic expectations of cooperation. In this, he has a point. In the 1990s, for sure, Boris Yeltsin’s government was desperate to join what seemed like the camp of the Cold War victors. 

Yet even as Vladimir Putin charted an increasingly assertive and confrontational policy towards the West, for years Moscow still saw little reason to concern itself with Africa.