Russia is using food as a weapon of war again. Earlier this month, it torpedoed the Black Sea grain deal millions of Africans depend on to survive. That was the elephant in the room at this week’s Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg.
African leaders as pawns and props
Frankly, the solidarity African leaders showed at the Russia-Africa summit in Petersburg this week was stupefying. But it said far more that only 17 of the 43 leaders Putin invited bothered to attend. And that’s because the others knew this was just another fool’s errand. You know, like the one another African delegation made to Moscow last month to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
In any event, Putin made a show of promising to send grain free of charge to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea, and the Central African Republic. He said each would receive 25,000 to 50,000 tons of Russian grain over the next three to four months.
Except, that amount pales compared to the amount the UN World Food Program sent before Putin reimposed his embargo on Ukrainian grain exports.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres responded to Putin’s pledge of no-cost grain shipments by noting that such donations of grain can’t compensate for the impact of Moscow cutting off grain exports from Ukraine, which along with Russia is a top supplier to the world market.
Guterres said the U.N. was in contact with Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, and other countries to try to reestablish the year-old agreement, under which Ukraine exported more than 32 million tons of grain.
(Associated Press, July 28, 2023)
That’s why Putin’s promises would be laughable if they weren’t so diabolical. He launches a genocidal invasion of Ukraine, steals its grain, blockades Ukrainian export of what grain he didn’t steal, bombs grain in Ukrainian storages, drives up the price of grain, reaps billions in windfall profits, puts millions of Africans on the brink of starvation, and now offers to send some of that stolen grain to Africa as charity.
And he wonders why so many African heads of state gave the middle finger to his invitation to this photo-op summit.
Russian-backed coup in Niger
Meanwhile, Putin made a mockery of that African delegation’s peace mission by bombing Ukraine while they were in Ukraine. That shows what utter contempt he has for African leaders.
So perhaps it’s no coincidence that Russian-backed soldiers mounted a coup in Niger while African leaders were visiting Moscow. That precluded any chatter about the humiliation his chief mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin, caused with that infamous coup attempt against him.
Hell, Putin might’ve been boasting that the coup in Niger shows the kind of foreign mischief he hired Prigozhin to make. Sure enough, a chastened and reeducated Prigozhin was all over social media taking credit for the coup in Niger. Undoubtedly, he was hoping to show just how indispensable he is to Putin.
Sadly, this coup also shows that Black Africans are just as vulnerable to exploitation by White Europeans today as they were in the 19th century.
Except that Putin’s gloating can’t wholly disguise his abiding fear. Because only that fear explains this:
Vladimir Putinhas agreed not to attend an economic summit in Johannesburg next month that will include China’s premier and other world leaders because of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for the Russian president, South African authorities said Wednesday.
(The Associated Press, July 19, 2023)
Of course, what South African authorities did not say is that Putin also fears disaffected soldiers mounting a bloodless coup in his absence, forbidding his return home.