ABSTRACT
The new “russianism” is the Russian-sponsored neo-colonial project to strengthen its
influence in Africa by controlling as many African States as possible. This project is part
of President Putin’s vision of a new alternative, multipolar world order and its ultimate aim
would be to appropriate Africa’s natural resources, break the sanctions regime and drive
the Western powers from the continent. Russia would be using Africa as a collateral effort
in the fierce geopolitical competition it maintains with the West. The elimination of the
West’s influence in the Sahel region would be a deliberate, albeit unexpected side effect
of European and US support for Ukraine. The success of this strategy would have
inherently destabilising effects for African countries and would be worrying for the
Western powers, opening the possibility of a new South front whose next battlefield could
well be West Africa’s coastal States. It is in the best interests of both Europe and the USA
to prevent this from happening.
Ignacio Fuente Cobo/Spanish Institute for Strategics Studies
(This document is a copy of the original that has been published by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies at the following link)
Introduction
The “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation”1 approved on 31st March 2023,
characterises the world order as an “imposition of rules, standards and norms that have
been drawn up without the equal participation of all interested States”. In this document –
which should be read as its National Security Strategy – Russia understands that the
situation has changed and that “the unbalanced model of global development, which for
centuries has ensured accelerated economic growth of colonial powers by appropriating
resources from dependent territories and States in Asia, Africa and the West, is
irrevocably fading away”.
However, the changes that are taking place and that Russia favours are not welcomed
by the Western States “accustomed to the logic of global dominance and neocolonialism”. The Russian doctrine therefore advocates the need to form “an objective perception of Russia abroad” by countering what it sees as “a coordinated campaign of anti-Russian propaganda carried out systematically by hostile States and involving
disinformation, defamation and incitement to hatred”.
This view is in line with President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the St. Petersburg Economic
Forum in June 2022 in which he stated that the West is still influenced by its own
misconceptions about States outside the so-called “golden billion”, which are those that
regard all others as “their backyard” to be treated as colonies, and the people living there
as “second-class people”. Moreover, as far as Africa is concerned, Russia understands
that social and economic inequality is increasing due to “the sophisticated neo-colonial
policies of some developed States”.
It is an almost apocalyptic vision of an international environment that the West has turned
hostile and in which Russia, as a providential nation, has “a unique historical mission
aimed at maintaining the global balance of power and building an equitable and
sustainable multipolar international system” and thus a solidarity obligation to “support the sovereignty and independence of African States” in the face of the West’s colonial appetite.
The result is the emergence of a renewed form of Russian-style colonialism that must be
understood as a deliberate strategy, beyond Ukraine, to expand its influence in Africa,
evade containment and sanctions, and induce the West’s withdrawal from the region and
destabilise and disrupt its adversaries. The new ‘Russianism’ has become for Russia a
strategic investment whose ultimate goal would be the creation of a large group of States
in Africa under its influence, which would actively contribute to Russian efforts to
undermine Western interests by using unconventional methods to do this.
It is striking how, with an economy the size of South Korea or Spain, and with few products
that are attractive to African markets – which translates into a modest level of trade –
Russia has been able to gain enormous influence in Africa in recent years. This is despite
the fact that Russia also does not offer an ideological, social or cultural model that is
convincing to many governments in Africa.
Why is Africa of interest to Russia?
Russia’s interest in Africa began to manifest itself in 2014 as a way to break Moscow’s
isolation following its annexation of Crimea and its intervention in eastern Ukraine. This
interest has been heightened by the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Its basis is essentially
geopolitical, but it is also strongly ideological. It is based on Russia’s vision of a postliberal international order that does not agree with the democratic norms, principles and rules that currently govern it and which Russia understands to have been imposed by the West.
Rather than offering an alternative model, as in China’s authoritarian vision, the Russian
doctrine points to the idea that political systems other than democracy offer a more
effective, equitable, transparent, or inclusive form of governance and thus have at least
the same moral equivalence as the Western model. In addition, this view has enormous
legitimating appeal for African governments that have emerged from coups d’état.
But beyond ideological considerations, Russia is driven by practical reasons. Russia
needs Africa and its fifty-four votes in the UN General Assembly to achieve diplomatic
legitimisation of its war in Ukraine. At a time when many Western States are trying to isolate Russia economically, Russia’s development of political, economic and military ties with Africa is a means for Russia to protect itself from sanctions. It is about seeking
alternative markets while damaging, even aggressively, the interests of the West.
In doing so, it benefits from the lack of internal checks and balances in many African
countries, which are often internationally isolated and therefore susceptible to falling
under its influence, displacing those Western, usually European, States that have
traditionally exercised it.
African governments also benefit from Russia’s weight in the United Nations, whose
power of veto in the UN Security Council is very important to them. Russia often sides
with autocratic African governments, as was the case, for example, in October 2019, after
Omar al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, was overthrown in a coup d’état. Russia
blocked the UN’s call to condemn him.
The invasion of Ukraine and the failure to achieve a quick victory has accentuated this
dual dependence between Russia and Africa. Russia now needs Africa to overcome the
international isolation to which the West has subjected it by acquiring alternative markets
to the European and US economies from which it has been excluded. This has forced it
to strengthen its policy of reducing its own vulnerability to sanctions by controlling critical
resources in Africa.
African governments, for their part, are aware that, in a context of war in Europe where
strategic and financial priorities are in Ukraine, they now have a choice of partners beyond
Europe or the US, unlike in the past. This revalue their geopolitical weight and allows
them to shift power relations by evidencing that they have Russia as an attractive, alternative option.
An example of this new, more assertive African attitude came at the UN General
Assembly vote in February 2023 when the demand was put forward for Russia to
withdraw immediately from Ukraine. Several African countries abstained (Ethiopia,Guinea, Mozambique, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe and the Republic of Congo), thus revealing deep divisions within Africa and testing relations with Europe.
How Russia has capitalised on the West’s mistakes?
Resentment towards the colonial behaviour of Western powers, especially in the French
Sahel and in Central Africa, is now more obvious than ever before. Russia has skilfully
exploited this situation by creating a favourable environment for its intervention. Russia
presents itself, in a way, as the heir to the support that the Soviet Union provided to
independence movements during the Cold War. In this way, it has managed to shake off
the stigma of colonialism, even though today’s Russia bears little resemblance to Soviet
goals and values. As a result, many governments and the majority of African public
opinion today believe that Russian assistance is more altruistic and pragmatic than
Western assistance.
At the same time, Russia has been able to use the shift in Western powers’ strategic
priorities to its advantage. With the United States increasingly obsessed with the IndoPacific and European attention saturated by the war in Ukraine and watching what might happen in Gaza, security concerns relating to Africa have become for the US and for
Europe secondary issues that have been given less attention given the need to prioritise
efforts and economise on forces.
Old tools, such as France’s Barkhane counter-terrorism operation have failed miserably,
while the US military presence in countries such as Djibouti, Kenya and particularly Niger,
where US drones and intelligence elements have played an important role in regional
counter-terrorism operations, have never gone beyond a modest level and there is s scant
desire for the US military footprint on the continent to grow.
The controversial presence on its territory of some European States that have been
supporting dysfunctional governments helps to improve the perception of Russia in Africa
by undermining the confidence of the African population, especially the young, in
Europe’s real intentions. At the same time, the fact that the EU has traditionally been
reluctant to support African governments with a poor human rights record has favoured
Russian penetration for whom lessons on good governance and debates on values and
moral rules have been completely removed from the content of cooperation.
Similarly, the apparent contrast in language and attitude between how Europe and the
US approach Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how they justify Israel’s invasion of Gaza,
conflicts that presidents such as Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni consider ideologically driven
and “a waste of time and opportunity” have led African countries to conclude that both
Europe and the US have no regard for African security concerns on the continent, but
only for their own.
The disparity in the allocation of resources and the greater attention paid to Ukraine or
Gaza compared to security problems in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa or the Gulf of Guinea
has left African public opinion with a bitter feeling regarding the hierarchy of Western concerns, which in the case of Europe does not seem to be able to overcome what Carlos Lopes, the High Representative of the African Union Commission Chairperson for AU-EU
Relations, defines as the “fixation” of EU countries with the “migratory threat”7.
Cooperation remains based on an asymmetric relationship, in which the West talks a lot
about partnership but seems unwilling to deliver on its promises, let alone make
concessions8. Many Africans on the continent perceive the need to comply with certain
value-based standards of behaviour as an act of hypocrisy depending on to whom they
apply. On the contrary, the Russian language used is usually one of sovereignty and the
message it conveys is that, unlike in the case of Europe and the US, Russia does not
impose ideological constraints, ethical considerations, or operational limitations on its
policy of cooperation in Africa.
Russia’s military support for the governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and even Chad
(not to mention the Central African Republic) provides evidence of the practical benefits
of Russian cooperation for authoritarian regimes, replacing the Western presence in
these countries with “private military operators” not subject to the operational or ethical
constraints of Western forces. Similarly, the enlargement of the BRICS club on 24th
August to include Egypt and Ethiopia, in addition to South Africa, would also be part of
Russia’s new policy aimed at “decoupling” the African continent from Western alliances
and friendships and aligning these countries with the new alternative order that Russia
advocates.
In short, Russia has been able to take advantage of Africa’s unstable democracies, its
easily influenced or controlled governments and the prevailing anti-Western resentment
to ensure that its destabilisation programmes are warmly welcomed by military
dictatorships, especially in the Sahel area, even if this means destroying the fragile social
fabric of many African societies that are left in a state of permanent instability.
You can continue reading here
Ignacio Fuente Cobo
Artillery Colonel with a diploma from the General Staff
Ignacio Fuente Cobo is a principal analyst at the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies (IEEE). He has been stationed in the Strategy and Plans Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as Chief of the Strategy Section. He has been a professor of Organization at the General Staff College and Head of the Organization Area at the Army War College. He is a collaborator of the San Pablo CEU University. He has a degree from the NATO Defense College in Rome and a Master’s degree in “Peace, Security and Defense” from the “General Gutiérrez Mellado” University Institute of the UNED.
