Lavrov in Mali: is Russia’s African charm offensive working?

During his visit to Mali this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov pledged continued military support for the West African nation, as Moscow seeks to expand its influence on a continent that has become the epicentre of a diplomatic tussle between world powers.

Lavrov’s two-day trip to Mali comes as the Kremlin aims to “shore up allies as the Ukraine war continues”, the BBC said, though its involvement in West Africa “pre-dates that and has been growing over time”.

The vow of military support comes at a crucial time for Mali, which has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2012. Russian support for Mali has increased since France’s withdrawal from the country last year.

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Standing alongside his Malian counterpart, Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, Lavrov touted Russia’s delivery of fighter jets and helicopters in August 2021, and promised further military support in Mali’s battle against Islamist militants.

“We have delivered very important aircraft,” he said, “and this has considerably increased the capacity of Malian armed forces to eradicate the terrorist threat.”

Before returning to Russia, Lavrov is also scheduled to visit Mauritania and Sudan, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

What did the papers say?

The visit to Mali marks Lavrov’s third trip to Africa in about six months, and shows Russia’s determination “to extend its influence and maintain support among non-Western countries for its invasion of Ukraine”, said The New York Times’s West African correspondent Elian Peltier.

Russia is Africa’s largest arms supplier and has nurtured relationships with nations across the continent, many of which have supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In this way, the Kremlin’s strategy has been “mutually beneficial”, Peltier said.

The growing partnership between Moscow and Mali has “prompted Western concern”, said Voice of America. International observers have expressed their discomfort with the deployment of Russian Wagner mercenaries in the country over the last year, with the UN calling for an investigation into the Russian group’s “systemic and grave human rights and international humanitarian law violations”.

Yet many of the West’s objections forget that Russia’s engagement with Africa runs deep, said newspaper editor Simon Allison in the South African Mail & Guardian. Because the Kremlin “played an active role in supporting liberation movements in this part of the world…doors here will always open to representatives from Moscow”, Allison said. “Western diplomats who take exception to this, laying claim to some moral high ground, appear to have short memories.”

Russia’s bonds with African nations extend across the length and breadth of the continent. Last month, South Africa confirmed plans to conduct joint military exercises with the Russian and Chinese navies off its east coast in March.

The South African National Defence Force said the exercises would “strengthen the already flourishing relations between South Africa, Russia and China”.

Support for the war games was not universal, however, with some questioning the “symbolism” of the announcement, DW.com said, coming just one year after the invasion of Ukraine.

The country’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said the “silly” exercises were being held at “an awkward time in global geopolitical history due to the Russian war in Ukraine”.

What next?

Room for Russia to manoeuvre on the continent was provided by the broad withdrawal of Western nations from the region, said the i news site, leaving space for Moscow to deploy “the Wagner military group and a disinformation campaign to expand its foreign policy reach”.

Anti-West sentiment has grown in Mali and Burkina Faso, due in part to France’s history as a colonial ruler, “but also because of its failure to deal with security problems despite its initial successes and a seeming lack of accountability when civilians are killed by French troops”, said the paper.

Russia, meanwhile, “doesn’t have this colonial history that France does”, said Christine Caldera, coordinator for the non-governmental organisation Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, “so its [stated] intention is to be a post-colonial partner to Mali and other countries”.

It is unlikely that Lavrov’s latest efforts will go unanswered by the West, said the Financial Times. Lavrov’s tour of four African states last July was “swiftly followed by a flurry of visits by senior US officials”, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Both brought “messages that sought directly to counter Russian propaganda”, the paper said, and the “US charm offensive” is set to continue this year with visits to the continent by US Vice-president Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden.

Just days after Lavrov’s African tour last year, Emmanuel Macron gave a speech in Benin drawing attention to Russia’s intentions. Rather than being Africa’s friend, France’s president said, Russia had revealed itself as “one of the last imperial colonial powers”.