While Russia has a long historical relationship with many African nations, Ukraine is virtually starting from scratch.
started rekindling these ties and seeking new ones about a decade ago. His support ranged from more conventional military assistance and weapons sales to running mass disinformation campaigns against political rivals. Russia is widely recognized to have made"Its diplomatic history with the continent was zero," said Ovigwe Eguegu, a Nigerian-based policy analyst at the international consultancy Development Reimagined.
"It needs those diplomatic missions to formalize the relationship with African countries and continue to maintain high-level contact with African countries." Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also made a flurry of trips to a dozen African nations in 2022 and 2023, as well as the Ukraine started donating free grain as part of its Grain from Ukraine program set up in November 2022. So far,, totaling more than 21,00 tons, milled from Ukrainian wheat. Ukraine has also donated wheat to Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
But it's not stopping at providing grain. Mali, one of Africa's biggest gold producers, is to get a gold refinery, while insurgency-hit Burkina Faso, where Russia reopened its embassy after it was shut more than 30 years ago, saw Russian military troops deployed, reportedly to help with training. These are just two examples of Russia's growing influence across Africa.It seems that Ukraine is learning from Russia.
"One is simply that it's a long way from home for a lot of African countries," he said."And secondly, African countries have -- and some to quite a large degree -- tried to maintain a certain degree of non-alignment, such as South Africa. They regarded it as a European war."
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