Why African countries are standing by Vladimir Putin

When the UN voted to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, only a small number of states allied to Moscow came out in support of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack.

North Korea, Belarus, Syria and Eritrea voted against the resolution calling for Moscow to “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders”. But a further 35 countries “refused to condemn Russia’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine”, including 17 African nations, The Telegraph reported. Another seven African nations “refused to vote at all”.

Western diplomats are understood to be “quietly furious” about African governments’ decision not to back the anti-Russian stance, said the paper’s Africa correspondent Will Brown. And the vote outcome also raises the question of “why so many African nations are quietly standing by Putin”.

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Africa reacts

The continent’s 54 countries “know more about the horrors and long-lasting crippling effects of colonisation than most”, wrote The Telegraph’s Brown. So “anyone unfamiliar with African geopolitics would be forgiven for wondering why” 17 of them refused to condemn Russia's invasion.

The continent has had a disparate and sometimes inconsistent stance on the West’s support for the government in Kyiv. The African Union and the Economic Community of West African States both released statements condemning the invasion. So did Kenya, Gabon and Ghana, Africa’s three representatives on the UN Security Council.

But South Africa, “a nation that has prided itself on standing up for the world's downtrodden since apartheid fell”, refused to condemn the violence, Brown continued. The Central African Republic, a nation “torn asunder by warbands for decades”, also abstained in the UN vote.

According to Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), “African countries’ reservations on condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can be explored through growing Russian ties with African leaders”.

“Russian courtship of African leaders has quietly intensified in the past few years,” said Obadare. While “Chinese diplomatic and economic presence in Africa has garnered the most attention”, Russia has been “providing broad military and intelligence support”.

Moscow also “appears to have tapped into an ascendant anti-Western current in Africa and elsewhere that predates the Ukrainian conflict”, he continued.

Viewed from Africa’s capitals, Putin’s “violation of diplomatic norms” in invading Ukraine “merely extends the historical pattern whereby powerful Western countries – especially the United States – have violated international law at will”.

Musa Balarabe Musa, a population and development specialist at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, said that “when it comes to Africa, none of the countries have the political, economic, or military relevance to be directly involved” in the Ukraine conflict.

Writing for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he argued that the war has been framed through questions such as “what role can Nato play in the crisis?” and “does the United States have the capacity to contain the nuclear threat?”

So for African leaders, there is little incentive to become heavily implicated, “especially with the rise of armed conflict and serious economic crises within the region”.

This stance would be consistent with Africa’s position in the 20th century. “During the Cold War, Moscow supported many liberation movements across Africa,” said The Telegraph’s Brown. “Some ageing elites” across the continent “even studied in Moscow and still speak fluent Russian”.

The UN vote abstentions “underscore just how much diplomatic weight Moscow still wields across many of Africa’s more authoritarian governments”, as well as the influence of “Russia's huge military footprint on the continent”.

Relationship test

While many African governments are steering clear of any involvement in the Ukraine conflict, their attitude has “generated fierce criticism” across their continent, especially from “intellectuals, diplomats and opposition politicians in South Africa”, Deutsche Welle reported.

“The refusal to condemn this war puts South Africa on the wrong side of history,” said Herman Mashaba of newly formed opposition party ActionSA. He described the invasion as a “violation of international principles of law”.

Nigeria, “Africa’s other economic titan”, has also “condemned Russian aggression in Ukraine and said it was ready to sanction the country”, The Telegraph’s Brown reported. The government in Abuja “has most likely been frustrated by Russian efforts to gain influence in west Africa”, which it “sees as its rightful sphere of influence”.

In recent years, “African governments have shown growing interest in building relationships with both the West and the East in order to diversify trade, investment, and aid options”, said Danielle Resnick, a fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institute.

But while “there is minimal interest in returning to an era when African leaders needed to show allegiances to a Cold War power”, the conflict raises questions about “how African governments will maintain their relationships with their diverse set of external partners – and with one another – as the geopolitical context dramatically shifts”.

“The West cannot afford to take African support for granted,” said the CFR’s Obadare, and the Kremlin “will continue to manipulate existing networks with a view to opening and exploiting cracks in African support”.

For all Western diplomat’s fury, “African nations have shown once again that the West should never take them for granted”, The Telegraph’s Brown added. “Like in the north, leaders of the global south can and will act for their own geopolitical advantage.”