Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: What does it mean for Africa?
Yusuf
Bangura
Nyon,
Switzerland
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks a decisive end to the
post-Cold War security regime that has governed the strained but
stable relations between the West and Russia and guaranteed the
independence of East European countries and former Soviet
republics over the last three decades. The invasion threatens the
security of small nations and reinforces the illiberal turn in
world politics by challenging the body of rights and democratic
norms that gained ascendancy in the 1990s. African opinion- and
policy-makers should understand what this portends for the
continent.
Russia’s transition from communism to capitalism was messy: its
economy contracted by about 40 per cent after a shock therapy of
price liberalisation and privatisation, inflation skyrocketed, the
ruble plummeted, and shortages of basic food items became the
norm. While the employment data did not show any mass layoffs,
about a quarter of the workforce was on unpaid or low-paid leave.
A third of the population fell into poverty and the social
protections developed in the Soviet era proved insufficient for
maintaining basic wellbeing. Boris Yeltsin, the first
post-communist president, sought and Russia was granted membership
of the IMF in 1992 and obtained a series of loans with tough
conditionalities that did not improve the country’s economy
(Gould-Davies and Woods 1999; Crotty 2020). Indeed, former Russian
foreign minister and prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, believes
that Russia’s losses under the IMF were twice as large as those
suffered during World War II (Arkangelskaya and Shubin 2013).
Many Russians saw the IMF loan agreements as an attack on Russia’s
sovereignty (Gould-Davies and Woods 1999) and an attempt to turn
Russia into a vassal state of the West. Indeed, the loss of the
Soviet republics, the deep economic recession, and dependence on
Western institutions for finance profoundly weakened Russia’s
status as a global power and provoked a conservative and
neonationalist turn in domestic politics. Russians yearned for a
strong leader who would reverse the decline and restore the
country’s position in the comity of nations.
After winning several fairly credible elections and stabilising
the economy with the help of soaring oil and gas prices, Vladimir
Putin, an ex-KGB official, fit the bill of a new messiah. When
Putin assumed power in 2000, Russia’s political system, though
fragile, could still be described as an electoral democracy in
that relatively free and competitive elections were regularly
held. However, within a few years of his rule, Putin reined in
independent political organisations, developed the brutal tactic
of poisoning his key critics, controlled national television
stations and other media, weakened the power of the oligarchs who
had been empowered by fire sales of state assets, and concentrated
power in the presidency (McFaul 2021). Supreme political authority
provided the basis for challenging Western hegemony and reclaiming
former Soviet lands.
Ever since he came to power, Putin has been obsessed with
recreating the boundaries of the Soviet Union as Russian
territory. In 2005, he told the world that the collapse of the
Soviet Union ‘was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the
century’ and a ‘genuine tragedy’ for the Russian people as ‘tens
of millions’ of Russians found themselves outside Russian
territory (BBC 2005). His strategic view of the world is a
throwback to the Concert of Europe of the nineteenth century in
which the great powers had vested interests and spheres of
influence, intervened in the internal affairs of small states and
acted collectively to maintain a balance of power or security in
Europe. Such a system is antithetical to the current multilateral
norms and arrangements that seek to curb unilateralist behaviour
by states.
The US and its Western allies did not only refuse to dismantle
NATO, they proceeded to expand it to include former Soviet
republics and East European countries. This was a strategic
blunder of enormous proportions, especially as Putin wanted Russia
to join the alliance but was told that he had to apply like any
state seeking membership (Rankin 2021). Hubris or triumphalism
clouded Western strategic policy-making. Many bought the dubious
and self-serving idea of the end of history—that markets and
democracy would now determine how states are governed, and that
the US would be the only superpower and would do as it pleased in
policing the world. This posture fuelled Putin’s suspicion that
the West still regarded Russia as an enemy and was not serious
about world peace. In the logic of realpolitik and national
security, the borders of states, especially those of great powers,
should be free of antagonistic military forces. It is highly
unlikely that Estonia and Latvia, which share a common border with
Russia, would have been allowed to join NATO if Russia had
regained its confidence and was governed by a resolute and
calculating leader like Putin. Matters were not helped when NATO
signalled that it would consider Ukraine’s membership of the
alliance.
There are two key planks in Putin’s strategy to revive Russia’s
power. The first is his challenge of liberal values and the
rules-based multilateral system. It must be stressed that the
attack on liberalism is not just a Russian problem. The US and its
allies ignored UN rules and procedures in 2003 by invading Iraq
under the false pretence of looking for weapons of mass
destruction. And there have been countless other US interventions
in foreign countries that clearly violated the rules-based
international order, including the use of lethal drone strikes in
Pakistan and Arab countries. In his United States of War: A
Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to
the Islamic State (2020), David Vine observes that the US
‘has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year
since its independence’.
Liberal values have also eroded in the US, where there was an
attempt in January 2021 to prevent a transfer of power to the
winner of the presidential election, and laws are being passed in
Republican-controlled state legislatures to limit black
participation in the electoral process and overturn election
results. Putin’s anti-liberalism is, however, visceral or an
article of faith and serves as an instrument for resurrecting
Russian power. In this regard, Russia has emerged as a leading
actor in disinformation, cyberattacks and tampering with the
electoral processes of Western and other democracies. Russia’s
hacking of Hilary Clinton’s and the Democratic National
Committee’s emails, and its collusion with Wikileaks to influence
the 2018 elections in favour of Donald Trump, another leader with
an authoritarian mindset, is instructive. It is clear from Putin’s
pronouncements that he is unhappy with the post-Cold War security
arrangements and the global rules-based liberal order, which he
believes shackle his quest for global power.
The second plank of Putin’s strategy is to claw back lost
territories along Russia’s border. The vehicle for realising this
strategy is the 25 million ethnic Russians who reside in the new
ex-Soviet countries. The creation of the Soviet Union in 1917 was
accompanied by the Russification of non-Russian republics, through
a process that involved the deportation of large numbers of
disloyal individuals from indigenous populations and the
encouragement of Russians to migrate and fill gaps in labour
markets and public administrations. One of the most glaring
examples of Russification was the displacement of the German
population in Kaliningrad (which does not even share a border with
Russia but is wedged between Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea)
and the massive migration of Russians into the region after
Germany’s defeat in the Second World War. Joseph Stalin occupied,
demanded and was given the right to annex Königsberg (the previous
name of Kaliningrad) by the Allied Powers as compensation for the
mass suffering Russians had been subjected to by Nazi Germany.
Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, supported the
expulsion (ethnic cleansing) of Germans from Königsberg. In his
words, ‘expulsion is the method which, in so far as we have been
able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will
be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble’ (Sukhankin
2018: 41). In 1945, there were only 5,000 Russians and more than
100,000 Germans in Königsberg; by 1948 about 400,000 Soviets had
moved into the region. There are now only 1,600 Germans or about
0.4 per cent of the population; Russians currently account for 87
per cent of the population (Wikipediaa).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the largest
number of ethnic Russians (about 8,300,000, or 17.2 per cent of
the population), followed by Kazakhstan (3,600,000, or 20.2 per
cent of the population), Belarus (785,000) and Uzbekistan
(750,000). However, Latvia (487,250, or 25.2 per cent of the
population) and Estonia (322,700, or 24.2 per cent) have higher
percentages of ethnic Russians than all other countries
(Wikipediab). Relations between ethnic Russians and host nations
are often tense as the latter seek to undo historical injustices.
I observed in 2004 the deep animosity between Latvians and ethnic
Russians when I organised an UNRISD conference in Riga, the
capital (with the UNDP office in Latvia acting as hosts), to
discuss the findings of our multi-country research project on
Ethnic Inequalities and Governance of the Public Sector. The
current Latvian deputy prime minister and defence minister, Artis
Pabriks, who was a researcher at the time, conducted the Latvian
study. Memories of the 60,000 or more Latvians deported to Siberia
by Soviet leaders just after the Second World War were still fresh
among Latvians, who also disliked the fact that Russians
constituted the majority population in their capital city.
Russians, on the other hand, complained about language laws and
tough citizenship rules that made it difficult for Russians to
obtain citizenship under the new government.
Putin has used the agitation of ethnic Russians for equal
treatment as a basis for invading the new territories. The
forerunner to the invasion of Ukraine was Russia’s intervention in
the conflict in 2008 in Abhkazia and South Ossetia, in Georgia, in
which Russia supported and later recognised the two breakaway
territories from Georgia. Despite the very small number of ethnic
Russians in those territories, residents there now carry Russian
passports. The big prize is Ukraine, which Putin regards as a
spiritual and cultural home for Russians and which, as we have
seen, hosts the largest number of Russia’s diaspora. The pattern
for annexation is clear: ethnic Russians complain about
discrimination and declare independence in their localities, the
Russian army is sent in to defend them, the Russian Parliament
recognises the breakaway territories, and Putin formalises the
process by incorporating the territories into Russia. The popular
uprising in 2014 against the Ukrainian president, Viktor
Yanukovych (who was critical of Ukraine’s application to join the
EU), his removal from office and subsequent exile to Moscow
may have been a turning point for Putin.
The first invasion of Ukraine was in 2014 in Crimea, where ethnic
Russians account for 65 per cent of the population. The failure of
the Western powers to draw a line on Crimea emboldened Putin to
mount a second invasion of the country. Again, as in the first
invasion, ethnic Russians complained about maltreatment, they
seized Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region, where they
constitute a majority, the Russian military rendered support,
Russia’s Parliament recognised their autonomy and Putin sent in
the military for a full invasion, which, this time, may involve
the annexation of the entire country. Russia’s strategy for the
countries bordering its southern border, which are less
antagonistic, involves the creation of a regional alliance (the
Collective Security Treaty Organisation) of Russia, Armenia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and turning these
countries into puppet states. This allowed Russia to send troops
to oil-rich Kazakhstan in January 2022 to put down anti-government
protests. The other non-Soviet country on Russia’s southern
border, Mongolia, relies on Russia to counter Chinese threats to
its territory.
The two-plank strategy of disdain for the liberal rules-based
world order and the annexation of ex-Soviet republics is
underpinned by a policy of reducing Russia’s economic dependence
on the West in order to be able to withstand sanctions. The
Economist (2022) reckons that Russia has reduced its debt to just
20 per cent of GDP, built formidable reserves of USD 620 billion
and created a ‘fortress economy’. The extent to which such
measures will insulate the Russian economy, and the appetite of
its nomenklatura and oligarchs for Western goods and services,
from the current raft of Western sanctions remains to be
seen.
Implications for Africa
Russia’s mission to upend the liberal rules-based multilateral
order suggests a lack of confidence in its ability to use those
rules to catch up with the West. Playing rogue is the weapon of
great powers in decline. In this regard, Russia’s behaviour
contrasts sharply with that of China, a rising economic and
technological powerhouse, which seeks to use—not disrupt—the
existing global arrangements to challenge Western hegemony and
attain its goal of superpower status. Russia is not even among the
top ten largest economies in the world: its GDP of USD 1.4
trillion is dwarfed by those of the US (about USD 20 trillion) and
China (USD 14 trillion). Russia’s GDP equals that of Brazil but
lags behind India and even the Republic of Korea, with a
population of only 50 million. Despite a few pockets of excellence
and an educated workforce, Russia is also outmatched in the
technological field: it spends just 1 per cent of its GDP on
research and development; its corporations conduct little or no
research; and the country as a whole trails China, the US, Japan,
Korea, Germany and India in patent applications. Its technological
strength is in near-space exploration, rocket engines and military
hardware; however, research suggests that there have been hardly
any spillovers from such sectors into the civil sphere (Sanghi and
Yusuf 2018).
While Russia is an economic dwarf, it ranks second to the US in
the global firepower index, or military capability (Armstrong
2022) and has the largest number of nuclear warheads in the
world—6,257 to the US’s 5,500 and China’s 350 (World Population
Review 2022). This asymmetry between military power and economic
and technological prowess may explain Putin’s infatuation with
military might and willingness to use it to assert Russia’s status
as a global power. The wide-ranging sanctions recently imposed on
Russia suggest that the West is willing to stand up to Russia by
isolating it from vital areas of global finance, trade,
investment, technology, entertainment and travel. The scale of the
sanctions is unprecedented. We may well be witnessing the return
of the Iron Curtain, which may plunge Europe into protracted
instability as Russia fights back to break free from isolation. It
is highly unlikely now that Ukraine will be admitted into NATO.
However, the invasion has given NATO a new lease of life and
produced an outcome that Putin wanted to prevent: NATO troops and
potential instability on Russia’s western border. Neutral Western
countries like Sweden, Finland, Ireland and even Switzerland may
abandon their longstanding policy of neutrality and seek NATO
membership for protection. Remarkably, the decision of Sweden and
Switzerland to fully participate in the Western sanctions makes
them vulnerable to Russian retaliation if they remain outside the
military alliance.
The doctrine of spheres of influence undermines the security of
small nations
The invasion and unfolding geopolitical crisis have serious
implications for Africa. Three stand out in bold relief. The first
is the danger of reinstitutionalising the doctrine of spheres of
influence in the governance of the world system. Putin regards the
territories of the former Soviet republics as ‘historical Russian
land’, which suggests that Russia has the right to take them back
or intervene in them to get the leaders of those countries to
submit to Russian demands. Putin’s address to the world on the day
of the invasion is telling. In that long and rambling speech, he
asserted that ‘The problem is that in territories adjacent to
Russia, which I have noted is our historical land, a hostile
anti-Russia is taking shape’1.
This statement suggests that Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine,
Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan belong to, and will always be
contested by, Russia. Part of Putin’s problem of seeing ex-Soviet
republics as Russian territory is that the Russian empire was the
only empire in Europe that survived the First World War. The
Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and German empires all collapsed in 1918
and a host of new nations were born. The Russian empire was simply
transformed into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics when the
Bolsheviks took power in 1917. However, the fact that the
ex-Soviet republics have enjoyed only three decades of
independence doesn’t mean they should lose it against their will.
Big powers have historically carved out areas that they regard as
spheres of influence. The Monroe Doctrine, for instance, informed
the foreign policy of the US for much of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Under this doctrine, the US viewed efforts by
European powers to influence or control countries in the Americas
as a threat to US security. In exchange, the US agreed to not
interfere in the affairs of Europe and its colonies. When, in
1962, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, decided to station
nuclear weapons on Cuban soil, just 145 kilometres (90 miles) off
the coast of the US, John Kennedy saw it as an act of war and
threatened to take them out by blockading Cuba. Khrushchev caved
in and Kennedy agreed to not invade Cuba. As imperial powers, the
foreign policies of France, the UK and Portugal have also been
driven by notions of spheres of influence. Britain struggled to
maintain control of its ex-colonies after it agreed to give them
independence; it created the Sterling Area and Commonwealth system
to defend the waning international role of the pound sterling.
Under this system, it tried to compel the newly independent
countries to retain the colonial currency boards instead of
creating central banks, maintain their reserves in the UK
treasury, tie their currencies to sterling and pursue extremely
restrictive fiscal policies (spending only what they earned as
foreign exchange) in exchange for the UK directing its
investments, trade and aid flows towards them (Bangura 1983). And
through the franc zone, France continues to exercise considerable
control over the monetary policies of the Francophone African
countries and regards those countries as part of its sphere of
influence. It intervenes regularly in those countries to change or
prop up regimes; for example, it currently has 3,500 troops in
Mali under the guise of fighting Islamist militants. Even during
the Ebola crisis, Western assistance to the three West African
countries affected by the virus (Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea)
followed a spheres-of-influence logic, with the UK heavily
involved in Sierra Leone, the US in Liberia and France in Guinea
(Abdullah and Rashid 2017).
The doctrine of spheres of influence has no place in the UN
charter or international law. Indeed, the raison d’être of the UN
(and its antecedent, the League of Nations) was to outlaw the
quest for spheres of influence in world politics. The fundamental
principles of the UN are the prohibition of force in settling
disputes unless when sanctioned by the Security Council or for
self defence; acceptance of the sovereignty, territorial integrity
and equality of all member nations; and respect for freedom and
human rights. These principles seek to outlaw war in the conduct
of international relations. Despite their violation in many
instances, they remain important for small states that do not have
the resources to confront strong nations. Indeed, resistance to
the doctrine of spheres of influence and military alliances
informed the decision by developing countries to form the
Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War. Most developing
countries still regard these principles as sacrosanct. It is not
surprising that the overwhelming majority of developing countries
(111) voted for the UN General Assembly resolution that ‘deplores
in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation
against Ukraine’, and called on Russia to ‘immediately, completely
and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces’. If
Putin’s blatant attempt to relegitimise the doctrine of spheres of
influence is allowed to stand, what will stop the former European
imperial powers from affirming their right to intervene regularly
in Africa, and even recolonise a few countries, by arguing that
they created those countries in Berlin in the nineteenth century?
How a beleaguered Russia is likely to behave in Africa
The second issue is how a beleaguered Russia is likely to behave
in Africa. If the West’s sanctions bite and Russia finds itself
excluded from much of the European social, economic and political
space, it is likely to become more paranoid and confrontational
and would aggressively seek allies in non-Western regions,
including in Africa. Africa’s open, fragmented, underdeveloped and
contested policy space makes it a strong candidate for enhanced
Russian intervention, big power politics and the creation of
spheres of influence. Russia’s engagement with Africa will be
substantially different from Soviet engagement with it during the
Cold War. During the Soviet era, Russia had a progressive,
anti-Western or anti-imperialist policy: it stood in solidarity
with African countries in fighting European colonial domination
and the obnoxious racist regime of apartheid South Africa. It
provided technical, educational and financial aid as well as
military assistance to many countries. And it did not associate
itself with kleptocratic and bloody military regimes like those of
Idi Amin of Uganda, Jean-Bédel Bokassa of Central African
Republic, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire or Samuel Doe of Liberia,
which were nurtured or supported in varying degrees by Western
powers. Russia served instead as an inspiration to forces across
Africa that were interested in transformative social change, even
though in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Angola, where attempts were
made to implement the Soviet model of development, it turned out
to be a disaster.
A beleaguered, authoritarian, economically weak, rent-seeking
capitalistic Russia that has been stripped of its aspirational
ideology will be different. The current Russia will be highly
transactional, aggressive and opportunistic. Russia’s recent
attempts to revive its flagging relations with African countries
are instructive. Given its weak economy, it will not be a strong
competitor in productive investments, trade and aid compared to
China, the EU and the US. Russia’s exports to Africa amounted to a
mere USD 13 billion in 2019, and its foreign direct investment was
estimated to be less than 1 per cent of Africa’s total FDI stock
in 2017 (Irwin-Hunt 2020). This is a pittance compared to China’s
FDI stock of USD 110 billion in Africa (Yu 2021) and China’s USD
250 billion trade with Africa. Russian companies in Africa have
largely focused on the extractive sector—such as diamonds, nickel,
manganese, oil and gas—as well as nuclear energy, where they have
a comparative advantage. Even though Russia is rich in mineral
resources, it lost many of those resources to the new states after
the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is believed that importing
raw materials from Africa is cheaper than extracting them from
Russia’s remote regions that provide the bulk of its resources
(Arkhangelskaya and Shubin 2013).
Increased Russian involvement in Africa’s extractive sector, which
has a history of corruption, bad deals and illicit transfers, is
unlikely to be different from the West’s, and recently China’s,
pillage of the continent’s resources and impoverishment of its
people. In Honest Account 2017, Global Justice Now (2017) reported
that, in 2015, Africa as a whole was a net creditor to the rest of
the world (largely Western countries) by USD 41.4 billion. In
other words, more resources (USD 203 billion—through tax
avoidance, debt payments and resource extraction) were taken out
of the continent than flowed in (USD 161.6 billion—through loans,
remittances and aid). The Thabo Mbeki-led African Union-Economic
Commission for Africa’s (2005) own report estimated that USD 50
billion left Africa as illicit financial flows every year. And War
on Want (2016) reported that about 100, mostly British, companies
listed on the London Stock Exchange controlled more than USD 1
trillion worth of resources in just five commodities—oil, gold,
diamonds, coal and platinum—and a quarter of those companies are
registered in tax havens. Russia’s quest for raw materials may
spur enhanced greed and dirty tricks as it tries to compensate for
lost opportunities in the West. This may aggravate Africa’s
resource drain.
Russia is also likely to push African countries to transition to
nuclear energy, where it has a huge advantage, citing the
continent’s large deficit in power generation. About 600 million
Africans are estimated to be without access to electricity.
Nuclear energy was one of the agenda items in the 2019
Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, attended by 42 African leaders.
Russia is in negotiations with most North African countries,
Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and Rwanda to sign nuclear energy
deals, and has committed to provide 80 per cent of the funds to
build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant for a whopping USD 25
billion (Chimbelu 2019). However, Russia has a poor record in
large-scale infrastructure projects. Despite Nigeria sinking more
than USD 10 billion into the Ajaokuta iron and steel project, the
Russian company, TyazhPromExport, contracted to build the plant in
1976 failed to produce any steel before the project was abandoned
in 1994. The failure of the Ajaokuta steel project was a huge blow
to Nigeria’s quest for industrialisation. Nuclear reactors are
expensive, capital-intensive, take years to build, and have high
maintenance and safety costs. African countries should be wary of
incurring unsustainable debts and permanent dependence on Russia
to run and maintain reactors. It is not surprising that South
Africa cancelled its agreement with Russia for a second nuclear
plant in 2017, citing cost, after an environmental group
successfully challenged the government in court. Surely, there
must be cheaper and safer green energy alternatives—such as solar,
hydro and wind power—to nuclear reactors in solving Africa’s
electricity problem.
A beleaguered Russia is also likely to be heavily involved in the
internal politics of African countries. Such intervention will be
seen primarily through the prism of its conflict with the West and
its need to secure whatever resources and economic opportunities
it can get as it tries to evade sanctions and diversify its
stuttering economy. Democratic norms and practices have not fared
well in Africa after the wave of democratisation that ended
military and one-party rule in much of the continent in the 1990s.
There has been a serious democratic regression as incumbents in
many countries change their constitutions to extend their rule,
governing parties capture state institutions, harass opposition
parties and restrict the rights of citizens, and elections are
rigged to prevent a transfer of power. By 2020, term limits had
been modified or eliminated in 16 African countries (Siegle and
Cook 2020), and in a list of controversial elections in the world,
50 are African (Wikipediac). Such setbacks in democratisation,
security challenges and failure to improve the lives of citizens
have encouraged the military to make a comeback in African
politics (Ibrahim 2022). Military coups have occurred in Mali,
Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sudan and Chad in the last two years. While
Western powers have been opportunistic in advancing the democracy
agenda in Africa (punishing countries they dislike while giving a
pass to others until there is a breakdown of order), they have
joined African regional organisations, which have failed to hold
flawed democracies to account, to oppose the return of military
rule on the continent.
Russia has stepped in to prop up besieged African dictators by
providing arms and military protection. Its state-owned arms
export agency, Rosoboronexport, is the largest arms exporter to
Africa, accounting for about 50 per cent of Africa’s arms imports.
It is the second largest arms exporter in the world after the US.
Indeed, the armament sector plays a big role in Russia’s economy
as it accounts for a large proportion of manufactured exports
(Chatham House 2017). Algeria and Egypt are Russia’s biggest
clients in Africa, but it has recently expanded sales to a number
of sub-Saharan African countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania,
Cameroon, Angola and the Central African Republic (Episkopos
2020).
Russia uses its paramilitary or mercenary outfit, the Wagner
Group, which specialises in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism
training as well as use of military hardware, to challenge Western
power in Africa and provide security to rogue African leaders who
want to remain in power and roll back democratic change. In
exchange, Russia receives concessions to extract mineral
resources, commercial contracts or access to ports and airbases
(Fasanotti 2022). The Wagner Group is active in the Central
African Republic, where it has been accused of summary executions,
torture and indiscriminate targeting of civilian facilities
(Parachini and Bauer 2021), Sudan (especially during Omar
Al-Bashir’s regime), Mozambique, Madagascar, Libya, Chad, Mali and
Burkina Faso. There has been a standoff between France and Mali,
where French troops have been unable to beat back Islamist
terrorists despite committing 3,500 troops there since 2013. Faced
with pressure from France, its European allies and African
regional organisations to organise elections for a transition to
civil rule, the military leader, Assimi Goita, invited the Wagner
Group to bolster his security and declared the arrogant and pushy
French ambassador persona non grata.
We are likely to see an aggravation of this kind of big-power
competition in Africa in which Russia and willing African
dictators try to beat back pressure for democratisation and the
protection of human rights. Western governments may also be forced
to give up all pretence of promoting democracy in Africa and may
relate with countries primarily from the strategic perspective of
countering Russian and Chinese penetration of the continent. It is
indeed astonishing that although 25 African countries supported
the General Assembly resolution that called on Russia to withdraw
its troops from Ukraine, 17 countries abstained, eight did not
vote and one voted against. Russia provides security through its
Wagner Group to many of the states that abstained or stayed away,
others are under sanctions themselves, and some have bilateral
military co-operation agreements with Russia.
It is important to understand that Western powers became
interested in the global democracy project only after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. For much of its history, the West practised
democracy at home and realpolitik or pragmatism, as defined by its
strategic and economic interests, overseas. This meant it could
use force to achieve its objectives without following UN rules or
international law and work with all kinds of despots and corrupt
leaders whose interests were aligned with its own. Its cosy
relations with the despotic regimes of the Gulf oil states
underscore the latter point. Western powers failed to sanction or
hold to account the Saudi Arabian leadership after the Saudi
Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was butchered by Saudi
officials at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018. Britain tried
to use democracy as a tool to stagger its exit from its colonies
in the 1950s and part of the 1960s, while devising new methods of
influence and control, such as the Sterling Area system and the
Commonwealth—but this was only for a brief period. France did not
bother with the idea of injecting democracy into its
decolonisation project, and Portugal was chased out of its
colonies through armed struggles. Let us be clear: the belief that
the US had become the only superpower in town after the collapse
of the Soviet Union encouraged the West to cloak its global
strategic interests with the ideals of democracy. We may be
heading back to the stark days of authoritarian politics of the
pre-1990s. It is difficult to believe that the West will firm up
its already questionable commitment to democracy on the continent
when faced with challenges from Russia and China, which have no
interest in democracy.
Short-term costs of the crisis
One final issue that should be highlighted in discussing the
invasion and how it is likely to impact Africa is the short-term
effects of the rise in oil, gas and wheat prices. Russia is the
world’s second largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia; it is
also the fourth largest gas exporter after the US, Qatar and
Algeria. And both Russia and Ukraine are major wheat producers,
with Russia ranked third in the world after China and India, and
Ukraine seventh. Both Russia and Ukraine account for 30 per cent
of global wheat exports, and Ukraine is a major exporter of maize
and vegetable oil. South Africa, for instance, imports about 30
per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and Russia is the
second largest exporter of wheat to Nigeria. Supply chains in
commodity production and marketing are often disrupted during
global crises. It is not surprising that the prices of oil, gas,
wheat and other grains, which were already rising in late 2021,
have skyrocketed since the invasion.
The effects of price rises depend on whether a country is a net
exporter or importer. For the big oil producers, such as Nigeria,
Angola, Gabon, Libya, Algeria, Republic of Congo, Ghana,
Equatorial Guinea and Chad, the price increase in oil is likely to
be a boon as state revenues will increase, especially if
production is ramped up. Gas producers like Nigeria, Algeria,
Egypt, Libya, Angola and Equatorial Guinea may also take advantage
of the cancellation of the Russo-German Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline
if they can invest in the infrastructure for supplying gas across
the Mediterranean into Europe (Iyora 2022). However, the vast
majority of African countries do not produce oil or, if they do,
are net importers. For these countries, the global oil price hike
has translated into a sharp rise in the prices of petrol and
related products as well as increases in transport fares. A
similar problem can be observed with grain. The important wheat
producers in Africa are South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan,
Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Nigeria. However, all these
countries are net importers. While the rise in wheat prices may
improve the incomes of local farmers, it may hurt consumers as
bread, pasta, noodles, biscuits and cakes become expensive.
Conclusion
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the current standoff between
Russia and the West threaten world peace. The doctrine of spheres
of influence, which informs Putin’s invasion, is dangerous not
only for former Soviet republics but also for African countries
and other small nations around the world. It provides a
justification for redrawing boundaries, annexing countries and
undermining the territorial integrity of states, which is a
fundamental principle of the UN. The isolation of Russia through
the West’s punitive sanctions may not only adversely impact Africa
through oil, wheat and other grain price hikes, it may also create
a Fortress Russia that will pursue an aggressive policy in Africa
and other weak regions in order to gain allies, markets and raw
materials and diversify its external relations. This is likely to
impact African politics negatively as equally beleaguered African
politicians who do not want to give up power may sign up for
Russian protection. In this new dynamic, Western countries may be
forced to abandon their already questionable support for Africa’s
troubled democracy project and engage with African countries
through the prism of their rivalry with Russia.
The insistence of the West on maintaining NATO’s open-door policy
of admitting any country that seeks to join the alliance is dumb.
Putin should withdraw from Ukraine and Ukraine should not be
admitted into NATO. The Cold War arrangements that kept Finland,
which shares a border with Russia, out of the military alliances
of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, while allowing the country to thrive
as a Western social democracy provide useful lessons. While the
doctrine of spheres of influence should be rejected unreservedly,
the security interests of all states that do not threaten the
territorial integrity of other states should be respected. Putin
seems to have overplayed his hand. The West cannot win a war
against him because of his nuclear arsenal, but his economy can be
crippled and the three decades of his citizens’ exposure to, and
enjoyment of, Western lifestyles and contacts can be disrupted,
fuelling resentment and possibly instability in his country. The
invasion has done profound damage to Russia’s relations with the
West, which will be difficult to reverse as long as Putin and
like-minded people around him are in power. Africa should brace
itself for the challenging years ahead.
Yusuf Bangura was a Research Coordinator at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) from 1990 to 2012. He was the lead author of the UNRISD flagship report Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics (UNRISD 2010) and Series Editor of Ethnic Inequalities and Governance of the Public Sector, and Developmental Pathways to Poverty Reduction (both series published by Palgrave Macmillan and UNRISD). In 2013-14, he taught international political economy at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leonel
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