How Africa Could Be Key to the Ukraine-Russia War

let's do a little bit of a deep dive into the war between Ukraine and Russia but this time we're not talking about anything actually happening in Ukraine or Russia instead we got to talk about the way this war is playing out across the African continent right because while Ukraine's been trying to defend its own territory it's also been fighting for diplomatic support everywhere from Ghana to Rwanda and in places like Sudan and Mali it's been literally bringing the fight to Russian mercenaries but with that a decade of dealmaking covert operations and propaganda has given Russia an upper hand over even the US in many African countries while Ukraine has defied expectations before you got people asking can they also do it here and then even if it can on a continent unendingly getting screwed over by Foreign interest should it and so to get into all that let's start by going back to when Putin launched his fullscale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or within a week the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning The Invasion and demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops and while that resolution seemingly passed with overwhelming support it's not the whole story right because when it came to Africa only 28 of 54 countries voted in favor with 17 abstaining eight not even in the room and one actually voting against the resolution and so for Ukraine it was reportedly a wakeup call right they didn't have the whole world on their side and so you had people like Alexander Kara for example a Ukrainian foreign policy expert saying we thought the invasion of a sovereign territory and the Russian Army's grave violations of international law would automatically put countries on our side but adding we underestimated how strong Russian influence was on the African continent and to that point at the time of the invasion Ukraine barely had any diplomatic infrastructure in Africa I mean it had just 10 embassies on the continent whereas Russia on the other hand had 43 and in fact in Ukraine's more than three decades of diplomatic history since it achieved Independence in 1991 there wasn't a single visit from a Ukrainian president or foreign minister to the continent so with that by the end of 2022 Ukraine announced plans to open 10 new embassies in Africa and as I'm recording this it's already opened at least seven of them plus Ukraine's previous foreign minister visited more than a dozen African nations over the past couple years in fact in August he just wrapped up his fourth African Tour since the War Began and then on top of all that Ukraine's been providing humanitarian assistance through its grain from Ukraine program right mean before the war Ukraine was Africa's second biggest supplier of Maze and third biggest supplier of wheat when the war broke out people were immediately worried about how it might worsen already existing food security issues across many parts of Africa and so in November of 2022 Ukraine started donating free grain to at least five countries War torn Sudan for example has reportedly received more than 21,000 tons of flour but then also with that Russia has obviously stepped up its diplomatic efforts across the continent as well with for example Russia this year announcing that it would be opening four new diplomatic missions bringing its number to 47 and total Russia's foreign minister has also been flying all over the place visiting several African countries this summer as well plus a year after Ukraine began its donation program Russia also started shipping free grain as part of a promise to provide Six Nations including Bina Faso and Mali with up to 50,000 tons though notably there Russia also withdrew from an international agreement that guaranteed the safe passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea but in any case right all that it's just the tip of the iceb Russia's true influence in Africa is far more expansive and complex than what we've talked about so far I mean Putin really started turning his attention to the continent about a decade ago and the key thing is that since then he's been propping up authoritarian leaders seizing precious natural resources and generally just up and a big thing I should say is that all of this is in competition with the US and its allies it's not like America has not been meddling in the region but Putin he's a special case he pursued his Ambitions in Africa largely with the help of a private military company and criminal organization known as the Vagner group though of course he's never revealed how closely Russia was controlling the group's activities around the world with this being meant to give him some sort of plausible denial AB ility when it came to the repeated accusations of Human Rights abuses made against the group but in any case wherever Vagner went and whoever they heard along the way a big thing is that the group took control of natural resources to both cover its own costs and bring in money for Putin's government and business has been booming in fact Russia has reportedly taken $2.5 billion dollar worth of gold from Africa in the past two years which is believed to have helped fund its war in Ukraine and then besides that Vagner helped build a giant propaganda machine to stir up anti-American and anti-european sentiment in the countries where it operated right they built troll Farms have paid influencers to spread lies on social media and then Russia's state-owned media channel expanded its Network and with all that a common theme was attacking the US and the West as neocolonial powers back for more while of course marketing itself is anti-colonial because a big thing is that Russia was among the few world powers that didn't have colonies in Africa and in fact many African countries enjoyed Soviet support when they were fighting for Independence in the 20th century although with that some point out the irony that Russia's current efforts to quote isolate these regimes capture their Elites and to extract their natural resources is quite Colonial but either way Russia's approach has been pretty successful binaso Mali ner they have turned their backs on the US and European allies in favor of Russia since their hunas came to power in cou after the past few years in fact the Russian military personnel who arrived in nier in April they're occupying the same Airfield that the US and allies built and something to keep in mind here is that while this all goes back to Putin the man who really had more to do with it than anyone else was yini prian he was the head of Vagner he also in 2023 mounted a short-lived Rebellion against Putin that ultimately failed with the men ending up dead in a mysterious plane crash within a couple of months and then with him out of the way Putin decided he needed to take control of Vagner himself and so since then he's been dividing up the group's assets and redistributing them to branches of the government and so we've seen the Russian Ministry of Defense taking control of vogner's mercenary arm in Africa and placing it under an umbrella group known as Africa core with Vagner Fighters basically given a choice disband or join the new crew and so with that this new group has continued its propaganda and disinformation efforts in fact a new propaganda Outlet African initiative it's been created to promote the growing ties between Russia and African countries and to that point Africa core has reportedly focused more on formal security and economic cooperation whereas the old Vagner group on the other hand was more involved in Black Market like smuggling and moneya laundering though it's also not like that's totally gone away but because Africa core is directly affiliated with the Russian government experts say that it looks more legitimate to African leaders and with that Russia is reportedly offering African governments a so-called regime survival package basically providing military and diplomatic support in exchange for access to strategically important natural resources at least that's according to a report from a think tank called The Royal United Services Institute and actually with that you have people like Jack Watling a researcher at The Institute saying this is the Russian State coming out of the shadows in its Africa policy and adding what they are looking to do is exacerbate our crises internationally saying they are trying to start fires elsewhere and expand those that already exist making a less safe world and notably with all this Russian mercenaries have reportedly been more active in Africa since the restructuring of Vagner right one us-based conflict monitoring group has reported that Russian troops engaged in more violence in Africa in the 9 months leading up to June of this year than any other period since at least 2018 and with that the group says that much of the increased military activity in Africa over the past year is linked to Russia's support of mali's military rulers right Africa Corp has doubled its manpower to an estimated 2,000 in the country over the past two years and violence involving Russian mercenaries in Mali it spiked 81% since compared to the previous year in July for example an ambushed by rebels saw Russian mercenaries fighting alongside government troops suffering what has been described as vogner's largest loss to date in Africa and notably and this is big Ukraine claimed it played a role with specifically a spokesman for Ukraine's Military Intelligence Agency saying the rebels received necessary information and not just information which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals and with that it's not the only place where Ukraine is reportedly taking a more let's say uh direct approach to combating Russian influence in Africa with Ukrainian Special Forces reportedly operating in Sudan in support of the country's Army against Russian vogner mercenaries aligned with the rsf the country also reportedly has troops in Somalia to counter potential Russian activities there though Ukraine hasn't openly admitted its involvement in these cases but the head of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence service when asked by The Washington Post about rumors that Ukrainian operatives were fighting in Africa responded by saying we conduct such operations aimed at reducing Russian military potential anywhere where it's possible why should Africa be an exception and then this year an official with Ukrainian Military Intelligence told Politico Ukrainian intelligence has to be present wherever there is a need to destroy the enemy which is waging a full-scale war against Ukraine we are present wherever it is possible to weaken the interests of Russia but with all that said there are very real questions about how much they can actually do to hurt Russia in Africa and then also more than that there are concerns that it could undermine all those efforts to build Goodwill with African countries like that Rebel group in Mali for example they reportedly attacked Russian forces with the help of an Al-Qaeda Affiliated extremist group right not the best look and notably it led mly to cut ties with Ukraine with n quickly following suit and then they along with Burkina Faso wrote to the UN Security Council to denounce Ukraine's involvement in the region while those countries are pretty solidly pro- Russian they're not the only ones upset are the economic community of Western African States for example which no longer counts nir Mali or bikina Faso as members they still released a statement condemning foreign interference in the region and then you know talking about Sudan that's arguably one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world today and many say that it's been exacerbated by foreign powers getting involved and although that mostly has to do with Iran and the UAE the Russian Ukraine Dimension can't be ignored but that is where I'm going to leave this aspect of the whole situation for now and of course I'd love to know your thoughts