Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to South Africa, eSwatini and Angola this week focused on presenting Russia as a partner for the continent’s development and security, particularly in the energy sector. The tour also had an overtly propaganda element aimed at boosting Russia’s tattered global image as it seeks closer ties with African states amid its disastrous invasion of Ukraine in February.
The image projected by the Russian state and state-affiliated media is one of Russia and its African counterparts earnestly trying to build better relations, despite Western interference and its “neo-colonial” policies.
However, given how little Russia currently has to offer economically, the development narrative is rather suspect. Before Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Moscow exported more to neighboring Belarus than it exported and imported from all 54 African countries combined. Since the war and its economic aftermath, Russia’s growth prospects have looked bleak, meaning that ambitious financial, infrastructure or trade projects have always been unlikely to be initiated.
On the economic front, the Tour seems to have produced uneven results at best. While Lavrov and his counterparts in each country hailed economic ties, only the announcement in Luanda of a prospective deal for Russia to help Angola develop its own nuclear energy program mattered.
With Russia’s nuclear energy regulator Rosatom having no presence in Angola until 2019, the initiative will largely start from scratch and Rosatom’s foreign ventures have often been delayed or ended in nothing, potentially ending the prospective deal.
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What about the security element? Russia has successfully carved a niche for its defense and security industries in Africa in recent years, becoming the continent’s largest arms supplier. Almost every country in Africa has a security agreement with Moscow, and many send officers and specialists to Russian military academies for training. The state-aligned Wagner mercenary group is also active across the continent, with deployments by armed personnel or liaison offices in several countries, including Angola and eSwatini.
Lavrov’s tour served to highlight Moscow’s security clout, although it also highlighted its limitations. However, there were indications of a growing Russian security presence in eSvatini, where Lavrov met with the prime minister and several other senior officials. The tiny kingdom has been plagued by unrest since 2020, with King Mswati III trying to maintain his absolute power despite widespread opposition to his rule.
In 2016, the two countries signed a military cooperation agreement focused on training and information sharing. The country-in-exile’s independent media has reported that Russian troops have trained the country’s military to crack down on the recalcitrant populace, an accusation Moscow has denied.
On January 19, the Russian ambassador to eSwatini said Moscow is ready to offer security assistance to the kingdom. Officially, the country’s defense minister rejected the proposal, but still met with Lavrov during his visit.
South Africa is a less obvious security partner for Russia as there is neither a military cooperation agreement between the two countries nor a Wagner presence that we are aware of. While the two have signed agreements to jointly develop arms production, South Africa is not a big market for Russian arms sales.
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Nonetheless, Lavrov’s visit was prefaced with the announcement that the Russian Navy would be taking part in a 10-day South African-Chinese naval exercise in the coastal waters around Durban.
The planned joint military exercises have been criticized by both South Africa’s political opposition and the country’s western partners. Even more sensitive are recent allegations by members of the South African Parliament that the government sold arms to Russia in 2022.
Even in Angola, which voted at the United Nations in October to condemn Russia’s sham referendums in eastern Ukraine despite long-standing ties between the two countries, there were signs of growing cooperation.
In December, Angolan President João Lourenço said he would replace Russian arms with imports from the US, marking a victory for Washington, which has been proactively cultivating rapprochement for some time, even sending an envoy to Luanda with Lavrov hot on his heels is.
Lavrov’s visit was reportedly aimed at bringing Angola back into the fold of Russia, but the joint press conference – although amicable – gave no indication that Luanda had changed its position on Russian arms sales or the invasion of Ukraine.
Aside from an uncertain nuclear deal with Angola, what did Lavrov’s visit achieve? It arguably has its primary function of promoting Russia’s war propaganda among both national elites and the general public in three African countries.
During the visit, Russia’s propaganda was sometimes repeated by state officials and often reproduced by local media, while Lavrov’s comments about the war also fed the usual disinformation mills and were reproduced many times across multiple platforms. Since diplomacy is about delivering a message, Lavrov can rest assured that his hurricane tour was a success.
The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.