President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday pledged free grain for some African nations and accused the West of “telling lies” in regards to the dormant deal that had allowed Ukrainian meals exports, scrambling to shore up assist amongst African leaders and casting his battle in Ukraine as a part of an more and more world battle.
Mr. Putin hosted round 20 African leaders for the beginning of a two-day summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, drawing a major contingent of officers from throughout the continent seeking to Russia as a supply of arms and meals. But the gathering attracted fewer than half the variety of leaders who attended the summit in 2019, an indication of how the battle has tempered assist for Moscow even in a area it has assiduously courted.
The Russian president started the summit on the defensive, having refused final week to increase a deal that had protected Ukrainian grain exports, pushing up the value of grain around the globe. President Azali Assoumani of Comoros, the present chairman of the African Union, warned that the “Ukraine crisis” threatened “a large number of lives” due to rising meals costs and referred to as for the availability of each Russian and Ukrainian grain to be facilitated, based on the Russian translation of his remarks.
But Mr. Putin has responded with a multipronged attraction offensive that underscored how he’s searching for to tackle the West on a number of fronts, properly past the battlefield in Ukraine.
In his opening speech on Thursday, Mr. Putin pledged to ship tens of 1000’s of tons of free grain to 6 African nations — Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Mali, Somalia and Zimbabwe — within the subsequent three to 4 months, whereas blaming the West for rising grain costs.
“Nothing happened of what was discussed and promised to us,” Mr. Putin mentioned, repeating his assertion that the West had failed to meet its finish of the grain deal and had executed nothing to clear the way in which for Russian meals and fertilizer exports.
He added that these casting Russia as an unreliable meals provider have been “telling lies,” which he mentioned had “been the practice of some Western states for decades, if not centuries.” Western officers say they haven’t stood in the way in which of Russian grain and fertilizer exports, which aren’t underneath sanctions.
Mr. Putin was adopted by Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church — a detailed Kremlin ally — who delivered his personal pitch for friendship with Russia: Moscow, he mentioned, stands in opposition to the West’s promotion of “anti-values” reminiscent of homosexual rights.
“Most African countries categorically reject the legalization on the legislative level of so-called same-sex unions, euthanasia and other sinful phenomena from a religious point of view,” Kirill mentioned. “All of this, no doubt, brings our positions closer together.”
Mr. Putin’s outreach drew blended reactions. Kenyan leaders have been essential of the summit, with President William Ruto deciding to not attend.
American officers privately exulted within the low turnout. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia, a staunch American ally who had signaled earlier that he would attend the summit, pulled out on the final minute to keep away from giving Mr. Putin a symbolic win, a Western official mentioned in an interview.
But in St. Petersburg, some African leaders showered Mr. Putin with reward. President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, who’s underneath U.S. sanctions, instructed Mr. Putin in a televised assembly on the sidelines of the summit that his nation “expresses solidarity” with Russia in its battle in Ukraine, based on the Russian translation of his remarks.
And some specialists mentioned that the Kremlin’s pitch of Russia as a bastion of conservative values may resonate with African leaders who embrace the identical values. Those leaders embrace Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who has confronted worldwide criticism for passing a harsh anti-gay legislation — and who tweeted a picture on Thursday of a grinning handshake with Mr. Putin.
“It’s one way of saying, We’re on the same wavelength as you,” mentioned Mvemba Dizolele, who leads the Africa program on the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to Russia’s conservative message.
But hard-edge geopolitics loomed over the summit. Of the six nations Mr. Putin mentioned would obtain free grain, solely Somalia voted in opposition to Russia on the United Nations in February in supporting a decision that referred to as for an finish to the battle in Ukraine. In Mali and the Central African Republic, Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has propped up authoritarian governments.
The variety of attendees has been a sore spot for Russia; this week it claimed that the West had pressured African nations to remain away.
In reality, solely 21 of Africa’s prime leaders had confirmed their attendance on the Russia-Africa summit as of Tuesday, based on the Kremlin’s foreign-policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov; dozens of different nations have been being represented by lower-level officers.
By approach of comparability, 45 heads of state or authorities attended the earlier Russia-Africa, in 2019. And 46 African leaders attended a summit in Washington in December, at which President Biden introduced billions of {dollars} in help and funding.
The Kremlin mentioned this week that Mr. Putin would maintain conferences with every of the leaders in attendance. That’s a marked distinction with the Washington summit in December, when just a few obtained one-on-one conferences with Mr. Biden, and maybe an indication of Mr. Putin’s extra pressing need to shore up relationships.
Also looming over the summit was the destiny of a key determine within the Kremlin’s drive for affect in Africa: Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the pinnacle of the Wagner group, who led a short-lived mutiny in opposition to Russia’s protection management in June. Two unverified images posted on-line by social-media accounts with obvious hyperlinks to Mr. Prigozhin confirmed him holding conferences on the sidelines of the summit.
The photographs, if genuine, would counsel not solely that Mr. Prigozhin was shifting freely in Russia, but additionally that he had entry to figures attending a serious diplomatic occasion. That could also be an indication that the Kremlin is endeavoring to harness his contacts and political good will in Africa regardless of the mutiny.
Mr. Putin has not but selected the longer term standing of Wagner in Africa or what Mr. Prigozhin’s function in business can be, American officers say.
Mr. Putin had lengthy made efforts to reinvigorate Russia’s ties to African nations with army help, commerce and vitality improvement as a part of a marketing campaign to re-establish a worldwide standing misplaced when the Soviet Union crumbled three a long time in the past. With the West’s piling on sanctions since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine final yr, Mr. Putin has sought to drag Africa even nearer.
But Russia provides little or no assist in some areas of significance to most African nations, like local weather change, debt aid and expertise. It additionally has competitors: China has made much more investments in African infrastructure and has established a far bigger commerce relationship on the continent. And the United States has been searching for to attract many African nations into the broad coalition of assist for Ukraine.
That could also be one purpose Mr. Putin has gone out of his solution to painting himself as in command of Russia’s battle effort and to claim Russian tactical successes as Ukraine pushes on with a long-awaited counteroffensive that’s shifting extra slowly than many within the West had hoped.
At one level on Thursday, Mr. Putin took a break from his marathon of conferences to assert on Russian state tv that the newest assault by Ukrainian forces had been pushed again with heavy losses.
“Today they tried to pick up abandoned wrecked equipment, the wounded and the bodies of the dead,” he mentioned, standing in a naked room, a Covid-safe distance from the reporter holding out a microphone. “But they were also dispersed.”
In latest weeks, Mr. Putin has proven how he sees the battle as a part of a worldwide battle, one that’s encompassing worldwide commerce, the Black Sea area and the continent of Africa. And his feedback on the day-to-day combating have been a departure from earlier intervals within the 17-month battle, when Mr. Putin went weeks with out discussing occasions on the battlefield.
His remarks have been additionally a part of an total intensification of his battle with the West.
In and across the Black Sea, the place Russia and Ukraine share a shoreline, Mr. Putin appears extra ready than ever to threat a direct confrontation with NATO. His forces on Monday bombarded a Ukrainian port simply throughout the Danube River from Romania, a NATO member. And Russia’s Defense Ministry final week signaled that any industrial ship sure for Ukraine within the Black Sea may very well be thought of a army goal.
At the summit on Thursday, Mr. Putin signaled that he additionally noticed Africa as an enormous theater for his financial and knowledge battle with the West. In his keynote speech, he supplied to assist African governments construct “financial infrastructure” related to Russian-developed techniques that might assist evade present and future Western sanctions.
Mr. Putin, as properly, tried to show some cultural sensitivity to the visiting leaders. At a night reception, he proposed a toast to Russian-African friendship, with a caveat: “I know that many of you in this room don’t consume alcoholic beverages.”
John Eligon and Paul Sonne contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com