The second Russia–Africa Summit was held at the
Expo Forum in St. Petersburg on 27 and 28 July 2023, following its postponement, having been originally scheduled for October 2022 at the African Union headquarters in
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia.
Attended by 49 delegations, only 17 heads of state participated in the summit, with 43 previously attending in the
first summit in 2019.
The summit was attended by
Yevgeny Prigozhinleader of
Wagner Group at the timein one of his first, and
final, public appearances in Russia since launching
an unsuccessful rebellion. His Wagner mercenaries have supported the interests of the Russian government in several African countries.
Putin said that Russia has written off $23 billion of
African debt.
Attendees
Hosts
*
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
*
Azali Assoumani, President of the Comoros
Other African countries
Heads of state
*
Ibrahim Traoré, Interim President of Burkina Faso
*
Évariste Ndayishimiye, President of Burundi
*
Paul Biya, President of Cameroon
*
Faustin-Archange Touadéra, President of the Central African Republic
*
Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of Congo
*
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt
*
Isaias Afwerki
Isaias Afwerki ( ti, ኢሳይያስ ኣፍወርቂ, ; born 2 February 1946) is an Eritrean politician and partisan who has been the president of Eritrea since shortly after he led the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) to victory in M ...
, President of the State of Eritrea
*
Umaro Sissoco Embaló, President of Guinea-Bissau
*
Mohamed al-Menfi, Chairman of the Presidential Council of the State of Libya
*
Assimi Goïta, Interim President of Mali
*
Filipe Nyusi, President of Mozambique
*
Macky Sall, President of Senegal
*
Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa
*
Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda
*
Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe
Other representatives
*
Aymen Benabderrahmane, Prime Minister of Algeria
*
Tete António, Minister of External Relations of Angola
*
Shegun Adjadi Bakari
Shegun Adjadi Bakari is a Beninese politician who has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin since 6 June 2023.
He is a graduate of the Lille business school and worked at the Société Générale in France from 2013 to 2016. He attended the ...
, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin
*
Abiy Ahmed Ali
Abiy Ahmed Ali ( om, Abiyi Ahmed Alii; am, አብይ አሕመድ ዐሊ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who has been the 4th prime minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since 2 April 2018. He won the 2019 ...
, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
*
Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chad
*
Jean-Pierre Bemba, Minister of Defense of the DR Congo
* Yonis Ali Guedi, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of the Republic of Djibouti
* Oburu Ondo, Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
*
Mamadou Tangara
Mamadou Tangara (born 4 June 1965) is a Gambian diplomat and politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2018, having previously served in 2012 and from 2010–2012. Tangara also served as Gambian Permanent Representative to th ...
, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Gambia
*
Albert Kan-Dapaah
Albert Kan-Dapaah (born 14 March 1953) is a Ghanaian chartered accountant and politician. He is currently the Minister of National Security. He was appointed by President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo on 10 January 2017.
Early life and educa ...
, Minister of National Security of Ghana
*
Morissanda Kouyaté
Morissanda Kouyaté, also known as (Mory Sandan Kouyaté) is a Guinean medical doctor and activist against female genital mutilation. After years of activism, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, African Integ ...
, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Guinea
*
Herimanana Razafimahefa
Herimanana Razafimahefa (born 1957) is a Malagasy politician who is serving as President of the Senate of Madagascar as of January 2021, succeeding Rivo Rakotovao. He was previously a senator representing Antananarivo, and ran unopposed for th ...
, Speaker of the Senate of Madagascar
* Samuel Kavale, Deputy Prime Minister of Malawi
*
Mohamed Ould Bilal
Mohamed Ould Bilal (; born in 1963, Rosso), is a Mauritanian politician serving as the List of prime ministers of Mauritania, prime minister of Mauritania since 6 August 2020.
Career
Prime minister
Prior to become the new Prime Minister Moha ...
, Prime Minister of Mauritania
*
Aziz Akhannouch, Prime Minister of Morocco
*
Nangolo Mbumba, Vice President of Namibia
*
Kashim Shettima
Kashim Shettima Mustapha (born 2 September 1966) is a Nigerian banker and politician who has served as Senator for Borno Central since 2019. He previously served as the Governor of Borno State from 2011 to 2019. A member of the All Progressives ...
, Vice President of Nigeria
*
Salah Ahmed Jama, Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia
*
Kassim Majaliwa, Prime Minister of Tanzania
*
Vincent Biruta, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rwanda
*
Sylvestre Radegonde, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism of Seychelles
*
Taban Deng Gai, Third Vice President of South Sudan
*
Malik Agar, Deputy Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of Sudan
* Nabil Ammar, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia
*
Stanley Kakubo
Stanley Kasongo Kakubo (born 24 May 1980) is a Zambian politician. He has served as a Member of the National Assembly for Kapiri Mposhi since 2016 and was Minister of Foreign Affairs between September 2021 and December 2023.
Biography
Kakubo was ...
, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Zambia
Organizations and other attendees
*
Moussa Faki Mahamat,
Chairperson of the African Union Commission
*
Workneh Gebeyehu Negewo, Executive Secretary of the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
* Amina Salmane, Permanent Representative of the
Arab Maghreb Union to the
African Union
The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the Africa ...
*
Dilma Rousseff, BRICS
New Development Bank President
* Benedict Oramah,
African Export–Import Bank
African Export–Import Bank, also referred to as Afreximbank, is a pan-African multilateral trade finance institution created in 1993 under the auspices of the African Development Bank. It is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt. Afreximbank's visi ...
(Afreximbank) President
* Gilberto Da Piedade Verissimo, President of the
Economic Community of Central African States
*
Karin Kneissl
Karin Kneissl (born 18 January 1965) is an Austrian diplomat, journalist and independent politician, having served as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 2017 and 2019. She is an expert on the Middle East and was a lecturer before assuming the go ...
, former Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of Austria
Countries that did not participate
According to several sources, a
Nigerien delegation was unable to attend due to an
ongoing coup d'état.
William Ruto, president of
Kenya, refused to attend the summit and opted for the African Union (AU) to represent Kenya instead, with a spokesperson saying that he wanted to convey the message to the AU "to carry the wishes of the country at the Summit". He however subsequently attended the Saudi-Africa summit in November 2023 later in the year and the Italy-Africa summit in February 2024 despite saying he wouldn't in leu of AU representation
The
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), a
disputed state which is a member of the
African Union
The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the Africa ...
, did not participate due to a lack of diplomatic relations with Russia.
Russian invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea Grain Initiative
On 16 May 2023,
South African president
Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the leaders of African countries came up with a new initiative for peace in Ukraine. In June 2023, a delegation from Africa, including representatives from
South Africa,
Egypt,
Senegal,
Congo-Brazzaville,
Comoros
The Comoros,, ' officially the Union of the Comoros,; ar, الاتحاد القمري ' is an independent country made up of three islands in southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. It ...
,
Zambia, and
Uganda, visited Ukraine and Russia to call for peace. On 17 June 2023, Ramaphosa and other African leaders met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. Ramaphosa called on Putin to end the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, but Putin rejected the delegation's peace plan based on accepting Ukraine's internationally recognized
borders. According to South African professor William Gumede, of the
University of the Witwatersrand, the African peace initiative was treated with "disdain and disrespect" by Putin. Gumede said the visiting African leaders perceived that
Kyiv being bombed during their visit to Ukraine was "humiliating... and then in Russia, Putin didn't even bother to listen to the delegation, basically interrupting them before they'd even finished speaking, implying there was no point in discussing anything as the war would continue."
During the Russian-African summit, president
Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo urged Putin that the Russian invasion of Ukraine must end and that the
African peace plan should not be underestimated. Ramaphosa called for peace in Ukraine and expressed concern about
food security and rising
fertilizer prices. Without specifically mentioning the Russian invasion of Ukraine or any other war, Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni said that the "only justified wars are the just wars, like the
anti-colonial wars. Wars of
hegemony will fail and waste time and opportunity. Dialogue is the correct way."
Zimbabwean president
Emmerson Mnangagwa voiced support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying that he and Putin "discussed the need for prosperity through peace as well as how our countries can work together to assure food security across the continent", adding that the "victims of sanctions must cooperate".
Malian military leader
Assimi Goïta and Central African president
Faustin-Archange Touadéra, whose countries are increasingly reliant on
Wagner Group mercenaries, also expressed support for Russia, with Touadéra saying that Russia "had helped to save its democracy and prevent a civil war", according to
Reuters.
Eritrean president
Isaias Afwerki
Isaias Afwerki ( ti, ኢሳይያስ ኣፍወርቂ, ; born 2 February 1946) is an Eritrean politician and partisan who has been the president of Eritrea since shortly after he led the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) to victory in M ...
openly denied the existence of the
Russo-Ukrainian War during a meeting with Putin.
Egyptian president
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and other African leaders urged Vladimir Putin to renew the grain deal and allow
Ukraine to export grain via the
Black Sea route. On 17 July 2023, Putin withdrew from a deal that allowed Ukraine to
export grain across the Black Sea despite a wartime blockade,
risking deepening the
global food crisis
Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003
* ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007
* ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989
* ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015
* Bruno ...
and antagonizing neutral countries in the
Global South
The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify region ...
. Following Putin's withdrawal from the grain deal, Russia launched a series of
attacks on the Ukrainian port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv. The Kenyan government called Putin's decision to block grain exports from Ukraine "a stab in the back" and said that the resulting rise in
global food prices "disproportionately impacts countries in the
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...
already impacted" by the
worst drought in four decades.
Putin offered to send "free supplies of 25,000 to 50,000 tonnes of grain" to six countries to make up for the withdrawal from the previous grain deal. The countries that were to receive free grain included allies of Russia:
Burkina Faso,
Central African Republic,
Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
,
Mali, and
Zimbabwe, as well as war torn
Somalia.
Summit events
26 July
During the sidelines of the summit, Putin held several bilateral meetings, including with Ethiopian prime minister
Abiy Ahmed, and Egyptian president
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, discussing trade, nuclear energy and other topics.
Putin also talked to
Dilma Rousseff, former President of Brazil and concurrent chairperson of the BRICS New Development Bank.
27 July
During a plenary session, Putin spoke under a theme of "Technology and Security in the Name of Sovereign Development for the Benefit of Humankind". The session was chaired by , the director of the Institute for African Studies of the
Russian Academy of Sciences.
Before the plenary session, Putin met with Comorian president
Azali Assoumani, also serving as the concurrent Chairperson of the African Union, and
Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. He later met with presidents
Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique, and
Évariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi.
After these meetings, Putin had a working breakfast with the heads of African regional organisations including the
African Union
The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the Africa ...
, the
New Partnership for Africa’s Development
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is an economic development program of the African Union. NEPAD was adopted at the 37th session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia. NEPAD aims to p ...
, the
East African Community, the
Arab Maghreb Union, the
Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a regional economic community in Africa with twenty-one member states stretching from Tunisia to Eswatini. COMESA was formed in December 1994, replacing a Preferential Trade Area whic ...
, the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the
Economic Community of Central African States, the
Economic Community of West African States, and the
African Export-Import Bank.
Putin and Zimbabwean president
Emmerson Mnangagwa held a bilateral meeting to discuss
Russia–Zimbabwe relations, during which he offered Mnangagwa a helicopter.
He also met with Ugandan president
Yoweri Museveni.
28 July
Many agreements were signed with participating African countries on this date. Leaders from the Comoros, Cameroon, Uganda, Libya, and the Republic of the Congo, alongside African Union Commission chairperson
Moussa Faki, were among representatives giving remarks, with emphasized calls to Putin for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The summit concluded with a final declaration, as well as an official plan for implementing a Partnership Forum for 2023-2026 and a number of other documents.
A bilateral meeting between Putin and Eritrean president
Isaias Afwerki
Isaias Afwerki ( ti, ኢሳይያስ ኣፍወርቂ, ; born 2 February 1946) is an Eritrean politician and partisan who has been the president of Eritrea since shortly after he led the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) to victory in M ...
was held after the end of the summit.
A confirmed sighting of
Wagner Group leader
Yevgeny Prigozhin in the aftermath of the
failed mutiny emerged, showing him meeting with Freddy Mapouka, a presidential advisor in the Central African Republic, and the head of the Cameroonian version of pro-Russian media outlet Afrique Media, at the Trezzini Palace hotel in St. Petersburg during the 2023 Africa-Russia summit.
See also
*
15th BRICS summit
References
{{International fora on Africa
July 2023 events in Russia
Diplomatic conferences in Russia
Events affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Africa–Russia relations
Ethiopia–Russia relations