NEWS ANALYSIS
When Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited South Africa, eSwatini, Angola and Eritrea last week, he spoke at length about the historical ties between Russia and the African continent.
The Soviet Union, the superpower that President Vladimir Putin seems intent on resurrecting, played an active role in supporting liberation movements in this part of the world.
Therefore, here the doors will always be open to representatives of Moscow. Western diplomats who oppose this, claiming some self-righteousness, seem to have short memories.
But for all the light-hearted treatment and photo ops—perhaps Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister and the one who initially condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, didn’t need to be so effusive in her welcome—the hard truth for Russia is that it is struggling to find meaningful African allies.
Eritrea and eSwatini are small, isolated regimes with little diplomatic influence. In the big picture, their support is meaningless. Angola is richer and more politically significant, but still has little weight on the international stage.
Tellingly, Botswana, which was initially on the foreign minister’s itinerary, canceled at the last minute without explanation.
South Africa is the grand prize. This is the second richest economy on the continent and the most influential in the diplomatic arena by virtue of its membership in the G20 group of countries and the Brics alliance (which also includes Brazil, Russia, India and China).
The exercises planned for mid-February between the navies of South Africa, Russia and China are an undeniable propaganda coup for the Russian regime, and will be woven as a show of support for Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
However, South Africa’s relationship with Western countries is much stronger.
Economically, there is no comparison. South Africa’s trade with Russia amounted to just over $1 billion in 2021, compared to $21 billion with the United States. Militarily, the South African military regularly conducts large-scale exercises with US and European Union member states (such as Operation Shared Deal last July, in which 700 South African and US soldiers trained together “to enhance bilateral military interoperability”).
Diplomatically, there is extensive cooperation between Pretoria, Brussels and Washington DC. It is only four months since President Cyril Ramaphosa was in Washington to meet with his US counterpart. The pair struck up such an instant rapport that Joe Biden ditched the planned show to give Ramaphosa a personal tour of the West Wing.
This was in stark contrast to Ramaphosa’s last meeting with Putin in 2019, at the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi, where Putin pestered him into signing a multibillion-dollar deal for nuclear plants to be built by Russia’s state-owned energy company, Rosatom. . .
This proposed deal, initially brokered in secret by Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, has been mired in allegations of corruption, and Ramaphosa had none of it in Sochi. Looking a bit exasperated, he told South African journalists: “We’ve met a few times and the nuclear issue always comes up. I said we’re not going to embark on a nuclear power project that we can’t afford.”
So for all the talk of historical ties, today’s Russia has not been able to get what it wants from South Africa. That is why, despite public pronouncements of concern, Western diplomats are not particularly concerned about where South Africa’s loyalties may lie.
“We believe that working with the Russian Navy is not the best option for a country that is trying to say it is neutral,” said a US State Department official. “But we also understand the politics.”
Without much economic or diplomatic influence, Moscow’s only game is in the military sphere, particularly through the activities of the Wagner mercenary group.
Wagner is active in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan, but his military footprint in Africa is small compared to that of the US, which maintains an extensive network of secret military bases in about half the countries in Africa.
A 2020 investigation by The Continent found that on any given day there are some 6,000 US troops operating from at least 27 military posts in Africa, and those are just the ones that could be verified.
Far from underscoring the strength of Russia’s ties to Africa, Lavrov’s African tour merely highlighted how fragile his influence on the continent has become. Ironically, his emphasis on the Soviet Union’s ties to Africa, which were much deeper and more significant, only served to emphasize this fragility.
This article first appeared on The continentthe pan-African weekly produced in collaboration with the mail and guardian. It is designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp. Download your free copy here
