Russia increases its efforts to gain sway in Africa

As U.S. steps back, Putin vies for continent’s cooperation

FILE- In this Friday, June 28, 2019 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gesture prior to their talks on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, western Japan. Putin is following China's lead and making a splashy bid for influence in Africa, hosting the majority of the continent's leaders this week in the first-ever Russia-Africa Summit. The Kremlin has said 47 of the continent's 54 heads of state or government are expected to attend.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)
FILE- In this Friday, June 28, 2019 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gesture prior to their talks on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, western Japan. Putin is following China's lead and making a splashy bid for influence in Africa, hosting the majority of the continent's leaders this week in the first-ever Russia-Africa Summit. The Kremlin has said 47 of the continent's 54 heads of state or government are expected to attend.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)

JOHANNESBURG -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is following China's lead and making a splashy bid for influence in Africa, hosting the continent's leaders this week in the first-ever Russia-Africa summit. The Kremlin on Monday said 43 of the continent's 54 heads of state or government are expected to attend.

Russia is taking advantage of the Trump administration's seemingly waning interest in the continent of 1.2 billion people that includes some of the world's fastest-growing economies and a strategic perch on the Red Sea.

"We are not going to participate in a new 'repartition' of the continent's wealth; rather, we are ready to engage in competition for cooperation with Africa, provided that this competition is civilized," Putin told Russia's Tass news agency Sunday.

Russia hopes to host such summits every three years, with foreign ministers meeting annually, said Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is the co-chairman this time.

Russia's military and business activities in Africa are growing as the country portrays itself as free from the past baggage of colonialism and slavery that haunt some traditional powers.

In addition to Africa's booming youth population, growing middle class and improving infrastructure as well as its long-standing natural assets like diamonds, strategic minerals and oil, it is also a place where Russia can grow its interests while avoiding Western sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Russia is trying to revive relationships forged during the more engaged Soviet Union era, when it assertively backed countries across Africa in a Cold War of influence with the United States. While the generation of African leaders and officials who trained in the Soviet Union decades ago is aging, some of them, such as President Joao Lourenco of oil-rich Angola, are still in influential positions.

One such relationship has paid off in the past couple of years in Central African Republic, where ties with former President Michel Djotodia led to the arrival of Russian military and civilian trainers. That alerted France and others to Moscow's growing interest in a continent it long had largely neglected.

"It will be naive to say Russia's return to Africa is not about geopolitics," Nigerian analyst Ovigwe Eguegu wrote Monday for The China Africa Project blog.

While Russia is years late to Africa in comparison with China -- which has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in railways, airports and other high-profile projects across the continent -- Moscow can build on what it has kept flowing for years: guns. Russia sends more arms to Africa than any other country, and the supply is rising, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

"Weapons exports to Africa facilitate Russia's broader diplomatic efforts to cultivate military, political, and security ties and expand its influence in Africa" to compete with the United States, France and China, senior fellow Paul Stronski wrote for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last week.

The experience in Central African Republic has shown that "Russia's relatively modest toolkit can have disproportionate impact with long-term consequences on fragile societies in or at high risk of conflict and with poor governance," he added.

Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with at least 28 African countries, the majority in the past five years, often using counterterrorism as a basis, according to an analysis published in August by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

One of them is Zimbabwe, whose President Emmerson Mnangagwa met with Putin in Moscow early this year and praised Russia for standing by during his country's long period of isolation. "You, as a senior brother, can hold my hand as I try to develop Zimbabwe," Mnangagwa said, according to the Kremlin's report. Putin is a decade younger than him.

While Putin and other senior Russian officials have visited African countries in the past few years, the United States under the Trump administration has shown little high-level engagement. Even the U.S. military's presence has been cut back, giving Russia and others room to assert their influence on multiple fronts.

Russia's trade with Africa almost tripled from $6.6 billion in 2010 to $18.9 billion last year, Judd Devermont, the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted last week.

The U.S. has bristled at Russia's growing presence. While unveiling Washington's Africa strategy last year, the U.S. accused Russia of "seeking to increase its influence in the region through corrupt economic dealings."

Devermont acknowledged that Russia's renewed focus on Africa threatens U.S. interests, but he and other analysts say Washington should not overreact. "The Kremlin benefits when U.S. officials and international media frame its presence in Africa as a restoration of its status as a global superpower," Devermont wrote for the Lawfare blog.

Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press.

A Section on 10/22/2019

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